South Cook News

On the heels of the release of arrest statistics that show that the Chicago Police Department is letting more than a fair share of major crimes go unresolved, Orchard Park Trustee Jim Dodge addressed the matter.

“So many people don’t want to go into law enforcement now and it's leading to a great staffing shortage for law enforcement,” Dodge told the South Cook News. “Until city and state leaders do their jobs to enforce the law, it won’t change. Right now, state government is failing everyone.”

Wirepoints recently publicized the arrest rates for seven “major crimes,” which the federal reporting guidelines break down into: homicide, criminal sexual assault, robbery, aggravated battery, burglary, theft, and theft of motor vehicles. 

“Data for 2022 reveal that arrests were made for only 5% of offenses in Chicago’s major crime categories,” Wirepoints said. “That compares to 10% in 2019.” 

Dodge cites a manpower shortage within the police department as a contributing factor.

“Not enough cops and the ones still on staff are overwhelmed by the rising level of criminal activity,” he said when asked to explain the low arrest rates.

Arrest rates varied by the type of major crime. Chicago’s arrest rate for homicide was the best of all categories, at 28%, but that’s down from making arrests in 41% of such cases in 2020, and a 33% arrest rate for slayings in 2021.

Aggravated battery had the next best arrest rate, with arrests being made in 16% of cases. That translates to a trend of more than four out of five cases going unsolved. 

The rates for the other five major crime categories were no higher than 5%.

Dodge says the city has its work cut out for it if it wants to reverse the trend.

“I think we’ve got to get staffing back up and we need to start doing a much smarter job in terms of training and rebuilding relationships,” Dodge said. “There’s crime everywhere, but much of the violent crime is concentrated in metro area.”