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* From WBEZ’s daily afternoon newsletter…
Homicides in Chicago were down nearly 8% from January to June compared to the same time last year, according to a report released today by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice.
The council examined data from 30 U.S. cities and found there were 202 fewer homicides during the first half of the year — a more than 9% drop.
The study also found that motor vehicle thefts rose a whopping 130 percent in Chicago during the first six months of this year, compared to 33.5 percent nationally.
* From the report…
This study updates and supplements previous U.S. crime trends reports by the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) with additional crime data through June 2023. It examines monthly crime rates for 10 violent, property, and drug offenses in 37 American cities. The 37 cities are not necessarily representative of all cities in the United States. Not all cities reported data for each offense (see Appendix), and the data used to measure the crime trends are subject to revision by local jurisdictions.
This snapshot suggests that levels of nearly all offenses are lower, or have changed little, in the first six months of 2023 compared with the same period in 2022. The most notable exception is the large increase in motor vehicle theft. […]
Motor vehicle thefts continued their upward trend through the first half of 2023. There were 33.5% more motor vehicle thefts from January through June 2023 compared to the first half of 2022. The number of drug offenses increased by 1% over the same period. […]
Violent crimes remain elevated compared to 2019, the year prior to the COVID pandemic and racial justice protests of 2020. There were 24% more homicides during the first half of 2023 than during the first half of 2019 in the study cities. Property crime trends have been more mixed. There were fewer residential burglaries and larcenies and more nonresidential burglaries in the first half of 2023 than during the same period four years earlier. Motor vehicle thefts more than doubled (+104%), while drug offenses fell by 39%. […]
The authors conclude that crime patterns continue to shift as the nation has emerged from the COVID pandemic and that policymakers and communities must act urgently to adapt their strategies to meet the new challenges. Though the level of serious violent crime is far below historical peaks, it remains intolerably high, especially in poorer communities of color. Research has identified strategies that work to reduce violence and improve the fairness and effectiveness of policing. Intensive efforts on both fronts are essential to help cities achieve lasting reductions in homicide and other crime.
On motor vehicle thefts…
It is likely that much of this increase is the result of thefts of Kia and Hyundai models, but rates were already trending upward before these vehicles became popular targets.
* Click the pics for larger images…
* NY Times…
Notably, violent crime has fallen at a time when many police departments are smaller than they were before the pandemic. While the defund the police movement, which grew out of the Floyd protests, lost momentum as crime rose, police staffing levels declined in many cities as officers retired or quit and as many departments struggled to recruit new officers in a competitive U.S. job market. The result for some major cities has been an unintended experiment in what a smaller police department looks like.
Los Angeles, for example, is down about 1,000 officers since 2019 — it had about 9,200 officers at the end of last year — and hundreds of civilian workers. And yet homicides are down more than 20 percent this year, and overall gun violence has fallen at a similar clip. […]
A similar dynamic of smaller departments and falling crime has also played out in Philadelphia, which had about 5,800 officers at the end of last year, more than 700 fewer than in 2019. The city saw homicides decline more than 20 percent and has spent millions of dollars in overtime.
Chicago’s police department has also lost lots of officers.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Jul 21, 23 @ 9:10 am
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Chicago is losing lots of officers to the suburbs. Suburbs need new, young Chicago cops to become their mi-career suburban cops. The CoP in my suburb told me that there aren’t as many new, young Chicago cops as there used to be and that suburban police forces are losing their supply of future cops.
Comment by Save Ferris Friday, Jul 21, 23 @ 9:17 am
“suburban police forces are losing their supply of future cops.”
Hopefully this trend comes to my village. Way too many 6 figure employees with nothing to do all day for a town with 31k people in it. Only person in the PD who doesn’t earn better than $100k is the chief’s administrative assistant.
Comment by Larry Bowa Jr. Friday, Jul 21, 23 @ 9:25 am
Kia and Hyundai advertisement…
So easy to drive…Anyone can do it?
Comment by Dotnonymous x Friday, Jul 21, 23 @ 1:35 pm