After New York City Mayor Eric Adams met with Lori Lightfoot at Chicago City Hall last week, he said he gathered crime-fighting ideas from Lightfoot that he could take back home.
Perhaps, he’ll be using her ideas as examples of what not to do. That’s because the Chicago Police Department’s latest internal crime performance report, CompStat, is out. It’s not looking good.
Citywide, overall crime in the seven major categories monitored by CPD is up 36% compared to last year. Perhaps more troubling is that crime this year is outpacing all four previous years in the report, including 2018 and 2019. Even 2020 was just beginning to enter the pandemic phase as the current report period ended on March 20.
Thefts and motor vehicle thefts are at four-year highs. Criminal sexual assaults, robberies, aggravated batteries, and burglaries are also up compared to last year.
Murders are down 3% this year but are still 24% higher than 2020, 74% higher than 2019, and 8% higher than 2018, the report shows.
Looking at downtown:
The Central (1st) District, which includes the Loop, South Loop, much of Bronzeville and Millennium and Grant Parks is having a blowout. And not in a good way.
Its CompStat crimes are up 142% compared to last year, 50% compared to 2020. Incredibly it’s also up 30% compared to 2019, and 24% compared to 2018, when the downtown area was bustling without COVID.
Motor vehicle thefts are up 182% compared to last year, 248% compared to 2020, 254% compared to 2019 and 291% compared to 2018.
North of the river, the Near North (18th) District spans from Streeterville to Old Town and River North to North Avenue Beach. CompStat crimes are up 92% compared to last year and 2% compared to 2020. All seven crime categories are up double- or triple digits this year. The area’s crime reports are currently pacing 10% lower than 2019 and 5% lower than 2018.
CompStat reports for all 22 CPD districts are available here. If you aren’t sure which district an address lies in, use the address search tool at this site.
In another questionable decision, Adams told the press last week, “we’re going to learn from Chicago, what they’re doing on their L line, so that we can see best practices.”
Violent crime of every category was up on CTA’s train system last year. On the transit system overall, murders increased 33% from 3 to 4; shootings rose from 4 to 11; sexual assaults soared from 4 to 11; robberies jumped from 453 to 492, and stabbings increased from 41 to 51.
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