Chicago suffered 572 homicides last year and more than 2,900 shootings, and leading mayoral candidate Toni Preckwinkle says that lowering the violent-crime rate is a top priority. But her 15-point criminal-justice plan, “Building a Safer Chicago,” gravely misdiagnoses what’s driving crime and offers policy prescriptions that won’t make the city safer.
Preckwinkle assumes that crime in Chicago is driven by over-incarceration of individuals for “nonviolent” offenses; a lack of employment, resources, and investment on the South and West Sides; “lax gun laws in border states like Wisconsin, Indiana, and major gun hubs like Mississippi and Georgia”; and incompetence on the part of the Chicago Police Department. She’s wrong on all counts.
According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, the majority of prisoners in the state committed serious or violent felonies, not nonviolent drug offenses. Indeed, five violent-offense categories—homicide, sexual assault/rape, assault/battery, robbery, and weapons violations—account for 57.8 percent of all Illinois state prisoners, 48.1 percent of whom committed their crimes in Cook County. Only 16.1 percent of inmates were convicted of a controlled-substance violation.
Also, most shootings and homicides in Chicago are perpetrated by repeat offenders, on whom the justice system has been too lenient, not too harsh. According to a January 2017 study by the University of Chicago Crime Lab, “around 90 percent [of those arrested for a homicide or shooting in Chicago in 2015 and 2016] had at least one prior arrest.” On average, someone arrested for a homicide or shooting had “nearly 12 prior arrests, with almost 45 percent having had more than 10 prior arrests.” These alarming statistics have led Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson to call for tougher penalties for repeat offenders. read more
A 15 point plan?…… Fifteen?
God himself only needed 10.
Man, I hope Toni Preckwinkle’s gets elected. Pass the popcorn. How can you be that fucking stupid?
Preckwinkle? Seriously?
Oh, she’ll be elected alright. In Chicongo it’s not how citizens vote, it’s how the democrat machine counts the votes.
Preckwinkle assumes that crime in Chicago is driven by..
That’s been the problem with Chicago for a long time. There’s always something surrounding Chicago that causes Chicago’s problems, but it’s never Chicago’s fault, it’s the fault of everyone else that can’t keep up with Chicago’s progressiveness.
It’s directly comparable to someone farting in a closed room and then get away with blaming everyone else for smelling good. Naturally, the democrats fall for it hook-line-and-sinker every single time; shit rolls off them like water off a duck.
It’s also a requirement to be uglier than a sack of assholes in order to get elected, not that it’s any different than all democrats. Chicago’s electorate just happens to wear it on the outside.
she looks like a mix of barack and moochelle in a few yrs
her name is as stupid as her ideas.
Periwinkle? Is that a boy, a girl, a tranny, a… whatever the hell they call themselves these days?! 😳
It all starts with the family.
Otherwise, it’s hopeless and a waste of money. But a good business for race hustlers.
Bullwinkle J. Moose is smarter, after all his alma mater is Wassamatta U. I wonder if her favorite color is periwinkle?
Be careful what pronoun you address it with or one might become an incarceration statistic.
You can’t solve the problem if you keep the most important factors involved in it out of the discussion.
But it would be racist to allow them to be discussed publicly, which is far worse than the problem of violent crime itself.
So it won’t happen.
The only way the pearl clutching goofs in Crook County will reduce violent crime. Is when they have an equal amount of suburban white dudes in prison than black dudes for violent crime.
It’s actually quite comical when something happens like the recent mall shooting or the face stabber on the CTA. I roll into the comments section and say. Oh look, another middle aged white dude from the suburbs shot up the mall.
Nobody ever believes my accusation. I wonder why?
If she’s a democrat, she’s part of the problem.