South Cook News

Rep. Chris Miller (R-Oakland) has major concerns over recent statistics showing that while crime is up in Chicago, arrest rates are falling exponentially, and he is blaming it on the city’s leadership.

“We need more officers on the street,” Miller told South Cook News. “We need the City of Chicago to stand behind law enforcement. Lori Lightfoot has a personal security detail and so she does not have to live with the consequences of her poor policy decisions. We also need Kim Foxx to be a prosecutor instead of acting like a public defender. The police in Chicago arrest people and then they are right back on the streets thanks to Foxx’s reign of terror in the State’s Attorney office. Chicago is a great city with terrible leaders.”

According to a Feb. 3 report by Wirepoints, data for 2022 shows that arrests in Chicago were only made 5% of the time in major crime offenses. This includes murder, sexual assault, aggravated batteries and carjackings. This is down 5% from the 10% reported in 2019. The numbers used are from data released by the city of Chicago’s crime data portal that includes seven categories: Murder, sexual assault, robberies, burglaries, aggravated battery, thefts and motor vehicle thefts. These categories are ones that cities have reported to the FBI “for decades.”

The homicide arrest rate is reportedly down to 28% in 2022, which is a 5% drop. It is 13% lower than the 41% reported in 2020.

The highest arrest rate in thefts in 2022 was in retail at 16% of the 9,000 thefts. This means that 84% of retail thieves are not arrested. There were nearly 20,000 thefts of more than $500 that ended with only a 1% arrest rate. For the nearly 19,000 thefts of $500 and less, arrests were made just 1.6% of the time. For the nearly 5,000 “thefts from a building,” that rate fell to 0.5%.

Miller said in order to reverse this trend, the SAFE-T Act needs to be eliminated and there needs to be a focus on protecting honest citizens instead of criminals. He said local police officers need to be supported and they must prosecute criminals and protect the communities.

“I don’t blame the police officers for what is going on,” Miller said. “They are overwhelmed and unfortunately they have leaders who are implementing one terrible policy after another. Keeping our citizens safe should be the highest priority for community leaders and unfortunately for the people living in Chicago – it is not.”