Chicago threw old Mayor Lori Lightfoot out with the trash in the last election but had a stark choice to make. Elect a tough-on-crime candidate or hand the city over to Brandon Johnson.
They chose Johnson and if the first few months of his tenure are any indication, it will be a long four years for that great American city.
398 people have been robbed in Chicago in July, with half the month to go. That is up 52% from last year. 61 people were robbed in Chicago on Sunday alone.
23 people were robbed in Chicago on the same day last year. On Saturday, 30 people were robbed. Last year on the same day only eight people were robbed.
But it gets worse for the residents of that city because Mayor Johnson just released a 223-page report titled “A Blueprint for Creating a More Just and Vibrant City for All” that included a disastrous “public safety” plan that will make crime worse.
According to The Washington Examiner:
The plan, which was inspired by a “struggle rooted in black liberation,” contains no recommendations to increase enforcement of crimes.
Instead, it proposes getting rid of a gang database because of “racial disparities,” issuing an acknowledgment of harm toward black and Hispanic residents of the city, “re-envision[ing] the role of a police officer,” and providing mental health services — rather than actual safety — in communities that are “over-policed.”
Even that framing of the problem being “over-policed” communities rather than neighborhoods with too much crime indicates that the plan’s focus is not really on taking decisive action to reduce crime.
There is much discussion about “disparities” related to crime victimization rates in the report, but it is unclear how exactly those disparities can possibly be alleviated by doing nothing to make predominantly black neighborhoods safer.
In the short term, mental health centers are not going to stop a single shooting by virtue of just being there. Neither will education on, and expansion of, government job opportunities.
The entire plan is just full of ridiculous ideas that, importantly, are no substitute for crime enforcement and active policing — which significant research shows does, in fact, work. The rhetoric sounds nice and flowery, but there is no real substance behind it.
This is a tragedy because, as noted, the crime problem in Chicago right now is getting worse, not better.
As such, implementing no policies that have proven to actually reduce crime — instead diverting resources to other, completely unreliable ideas — is a recipe to exacerbate the issue further.
Robberies were reported overnight in Wicker Park, Bucktown, and outside a River North hotel.
Cops are trying to get a handle on a huge surge in robbery cases.
On Sunday, 61 people were robbed in Chicago compared to 23 on the same day last year.https://t.co/uWvSOcoEbE
— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) July 13, 2023
Prosecutors say he carjacked a woman at gunpoint while on bail for another carjacking and on probation for a gun case.
Stories like this often raise the question, how was that person out on the streets?
In this case, the answer is Judge Geary Kull. https://t.co/aFFhqX7kEF
— CWBChicago (@CWBChicago) July 13, 2023
