Chicago City Wire

Crime has jumped 38 percent in Brandon Johnson’s first month as mayor of Chicago, and while Wirepoints, which reported the increase, was hesitant to tie Johnson’s policy or rhetoric to the increase, soft-on-crime policies funded by the left keep rising as well.

The Capital Research Center (CRC) reports that numerous left-leaning groups have made “large seven-figure total donations to criminal justice policy groups since 2016.”

In one case, a nonprofit funded by liberal billionaire George Soros, Promote Open Society, in 2020 began a five-year program of giving $220 million to the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and other groups.

“EJI claims its goal is to ‘end our misguided reliance on over-incarceration’ because ‘tough on crime’ policies have caused ‘mass incarceration’ that is ‘rooted in the belief that Black and brown people are inherently guilty and dangerous,’” CRC reports. “Current policies, according to EJI, do not reduce violent crime, but instead ‘makes these problems worse’ because they use prisons improperly to address ‘poverty and mental illness.’”

Other groups funding soft-on-crime policies include Open Philanthropy, the Ford Foundation, the Arabella Advisors network, the Public Welfare Foundation, the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, the JPB Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Craig Newmark Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Advocacy, the Network for Good, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.

In Chicago, statistics in all major crime categories have increased under Johnson, Wirepoints reports.

Aggravated batteries were up 17% and burglaries increased 12%. Criminal sexual assaults were up 5%. Car thefts continued their out-of-control spiral, up 153%. Even shootings were up 12%.

“Readers can decide if it’s too early to tie Mayor Brandon Johnson’s words and actions with the increase in crimes taking place under his watch, but the numbers during his first month weren’t good,” the Wirepoints story said. “The negative trend that’s been in place over the last three years has continued unabated since Johnson took office.”