Moments after the South East Lake View Neighbors community group voted not to support a zoning variance that would allow the Broadway Youth Center to operate on a residential street, 44th ward Alderman Tom Tunney took to the stage.
In comments that could be classified as off-the-cuff at best, Tunney tossed out an interesting promise. His office would release a 10-year analysis of crime.
That was on January 13th. Two weeks later, there’s been no analysis released, so CWB decided to do it for you.
We hopped over the the city’s Data Portal and downloaded the police department’s crime data for 2003 and 2013. Then, our Excel guru assembled an “analysis.” It took about 45 minutes.
Our analysis measures percentage changes in reported crimes over the 10-year period for four areas:
• Citywide change in crime
• Change in our 44th ward, which includes Wrigleyville and Boystown
• Change in the other 3 wards that represent portions of Lakeview (wards 32, 46, and 47)
• Change in crime within the formal boundaries of Lakeview
Overall, our ward saw a 17% drop in all reported crimes between 2003 and 2013. That pales in comparison to the other Lakeview wards’ 43% drop and a citywide decline of 33%.
Our ward underperformed Lakeview’s reported crime drop in 19 of 25 crime categories.
Consistent with CWB’s position that our neighborhood’s problem is violent street crime, our ward saw notable increases in two important categories: robbery, up 33% compared to a 32% decrease citywide, and battery, up 7% compared to a citywide decrease of 37%.
The other wards that include parts of Lakeview enjoyed a 40% drop in robberies and a 44% drop in batteries.
Meanwhile, our burglary rate saw a significant decline and homicide, which is very rare in our neighborhood, dropped from two in 2003 to zero last year.
Data geeks can jump over to our spreadsheet HERE to see how the neighborhood performed in 25 different crime categories.
Some headlines:
Criminal Sexual Assault (Rape)
Citywide: -26%
Lakeview: -22%
Other Lakeview Wards: -16%
Our ward: -5%
Robbery
Citywide: -32%
Lakeview: +20%
Other Lakeview wards: -40%
Our ward: +33%
Theft
Citywide: -17%
Lakeview: -16%
Other Lakeview wards: -37%
Our Ward: -8%
Burglary
Citywide: -29%
Lakeview: -51%
Other Lakeview wards: -48%
