Chicago City Wire

Chicago’s progressive leaders and the media are celebrating a drop in the city’s murder rate in 2024.

However, as pointed out by Wirepoints, an independent nonprofit focused on Illinois’ economy and government, the decrease isn’t as significant as those in other major cities with lower murder rates to begin with.

“Based on reporting from AHDatalytics, Chicago is tied for the second-lowest percentage drop in homicides in the country among cities with populations greater than 250,000,” the Wirepoints report noted. 

“Cities like Jacksonville, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore have all seen murders drop by about 30 percent to 50 percent this year compared to last. Chicago, meanwhile, had dropped by just 7 percent as of Oct. 5.”

Wirepoints also noted that some observers point to the marginal decline in murder rates in New York and Los Angeles—New York's rate dropped 12 percent, while Los Angeles' fell by 10 percent.

“It’s important to note that both big cities already had low murder rates, making big drops more difficult for them,” the Wirepoints report stated. “The homicide rate in 2023 in Los Angeles was just 8.6 per 100,000, and New York’s was even lower at 4.7 per 100,000. By contrast, Chicago’s was five times higher than New York’s, at 23.2.”

The Illinois Policy Institute also previously reported that violent crime continues to rise in Chicago, with robberies up 21 percent over the past year, while arrests are declining.

“Chicagoans reported 7.6 percent more violent crime from July 2023 through June 2024,” the Illinois Policy Institute report said. “Residents experienced a 21 percent increase in robberies during those 12 months, with robberies making up one-third of all violent crimes. Residents reported 29,522 violent crimes through June. But as violent crime hit its highest level in five years, the arrest rate for these felonies declined to 10.8 percent, the lowest level in the past five years.”

Despite these trends, the city’s "soft-on-crime" policies remain unchanged.

The Chicago Police Department is reportedly understaffed by 2,000 officers, and there are no indications that the nearly bankrupt city will hire more. 

Residents are also reeling from the recent loss of gunshot detection technology, ShotSpotter, which was canceled by Mayor Brandon Johnson in late September. 

The popular police blog Second City Cop has been tracking shootings where ShotSpotter could have potentially saved lives.

One example listed on its site:

“Police and fire personnel responding to a ‘person down’ call on Saturday evening discovered the individual had been shot to death.

“A 911 caller reported that a man was laid out in the street in the first block of West 125th Street around 7 p.m. According to CPD, he was pronounced dead at the scene from a gunshot wound to the neck. The killer remains at large. Police were still working to identify the man and determine his age.

“A witness told police that they saw a silver SUV leaving the area, but cops didn’t find any shell casings. The street used to be monitored by the city’s ShotSpotter network.”

Additionally, former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx dismissed 30 percent of the felony cases presented to her during her first three years in office. This included 6.1 percent of aggravated firearm battery offenses, 8.1 percent of homicides, 8.1 percent of aggravated battery attacks on police officers, and 9.5 percent of felony sex crimes.

This could change with the installation of Democrat Eileen O’Neill Burke as State’s Attorney. 

Burke, who was sworn in on Dec. 2, ran on a tough-on-crime platform and pledged to prosecute more retail thefts as felonies. 

In 2016, after taking office, Foxx raised the ceiling for retail theft prosecutions to $1,000. Burke plans to lower that threshold to $300 for felony prosecution.