Chicago & Policing (new title)

[MattC86]

Sorry it took so long to respond to the beating here. I'll just say this. The Chicago Tribune did a bit a few years ago called "Homicide: Scourge of a City," and claimed that since Daley's election, violent crime had dropped in Chicago by 50%. Murders under 500 a year for the first time in 40 years. Heck, I'm 22 and I can remember when they were well over 900. I won't chalk it up to gun control - you all clearly know more than I do. But he's done a good job with crime in general, and while he's pushing his anti-gun agenda during this rash of shootings (apparently the CPD doesn't count, though - the M4s are a bit of overkill), he's also pushing a lot of positive initiatives; after-school programs, increased arts and sports funding for public schools, etc.

And yeah, Ron, you're right - I think an AK or equivalent is still allowed. Not quite "gun control" as we know it Thanks for the heads-up.

Regards,

Matt

[Rex Brynen]

Murders under 500 a year for the first time in 40 years.

Sheesh, we have around 600 a year...

...for the entire country.

[Cavguy]

I lived in Germany for six years with some of the most restrictive gun laws on Earth. I seem to remember very few gun homicides or gun armed criminal gangs roaming the streets engaging in shootouts. I also remember that every gun incident made national news. Most crimes were done at knifepoint, IIRC.

When we first moved back here to Leavenworth, my wife (who is German) turned on the 10PM local newscast. Five violent murders and a drive-by on that day alone. I was even taken aback, having not been used to that level of violence in Germany.

After being able to walk the streets of almost every major northern European city and town at 2 AM relatively safely, I really wonder how much our devotion to relatively unregulated gun posession is making us safer. I wouldn't have walked the streets of Richmond, VA (my hometown) or most mid-large sized US cities at 2AM.

[120mm]

I lived in Germany for six years with some of the most restrictive gun laws on Earth. I seem to remember very few gun homicides or gun armed criminal gangs roaming the streets engaging in shootouts. I also remember that every gun incident made national news. Most crimes were done at knifepoint, IIRC.

When we first moved back here to Leavenworth, my wife (who is German) turned on the 10PM local newscast. Five violent murders and a drive-by on that day alone. I was even taken aback, having not been used to that level of violence in Germany.

After being able to walk the streets of almost every major northern European city and town at 2 AM relatively safely, I really wonder how much our devotion to relatively unregulated gun posession is making us safer. I wouldn't have walked the streets of Richmond, VA (my hometown) or most mid-large sized US cities at 2AM.

Murder rates have little to do with guns, imo, and more to do with traditions of individual violence and "obedience to the law".

Give US police the power of the polizei, and a populace that will accept that power, and crime rates would plummet.

But if one wants safety, one could volunteer to be locked into a little cage.

[120mm]

Actually, M4s and other rifle caliber carbines are good police tools. They are more accurate than pistols and shotguns, and are handy, intuitive weapons to carry.

They don't over-penetrate any worse than other weapons, as well. Any round capable of killing a human being will over-penetrate, but in fact, pistol rounds over-penetrate worse than 5.56.

What people get hung up on is the way they "look". While an M94 Winchester carbine would "look nicer", while retaining roughly equivalent capabilities, the M4 carbine is more durable and reliable, and has spare part, training and accessory supply chains that are unsurpassed.

[Ken White]

Sheesh, we have around 600 a year...

...for the entire country.

Even though handguns are virtually banned...

Did I not read a year or two ago that the RCMP had been accused IIRC of underreporting? No matter, let's say it's accurate. Just proves Canadians as a group are less violent than Americans. Good for you.

[selil]

Starting in the mid 1990s substantially less violent crime occurred as it literally dropped off the charts (the 1970s and 1980s were horrible). Some would say it was increased policing as Clinton claimed. Some would say that it was increased incarceration of criminals as Bush version 1 said. There are sociological possibilities found in Friedmans book touting increased abortion rates after Rowe v. Wade that decreased unwanted humans able to commit crime in the 90s.

In any regards my favorite is the advancement of "Make my Day" laws and increased civic mindedness and personal responsibility ethos.

The fact remains though that current crime is much less than it used to be. It is also a fact that locations with more restrictive gun control laws see more crime than areas with lax gun laws. There is correlation but not necessarily causation.

Chicago is not that bad off. Gary Indiana has about 1 murder for every 1000 people a year. A rate that equates to the homicide rate in Baghdad on a per capita basis. Gun laws are a red herring used by politicians to polarize the masses on both sides of the debate and frame the argument in a manner that makes it virtually unsolvable. If they wanted to fix the issue they would break up the gangs, destroy the nexus points in the organizations, and handle the situation like a counter insurgency. Unfortunately there is more money in maintaining the problem than fixing it.

[AdamG]

Hooray for Daley!

Murders in the city peaked first in 1974, with 970 murders when the city's population was over three million, resulting in a murder rate of around 29 per 100,000, and again in 1992, with 943 murders when the city had fewer than three million people, resulting in a murder rate of 34 per 100,000.

Following 1992, the murder count slowly decreased to 705 by 1999. In 2002, Chicago had fewer number of murders but a significantly higher murder rate than New York or Los Angeles, a situation which city police attributed to entrenched gang violence.

http://egov.cityofchicago.org/webpor...ORIAL/04AR.pdf

And for 2006? Still coming at Highest Urban Murder Rate in the US, numba one wit' a bullet!
In Chicago, homicides through the first 11 months of the year were up 3.3 percent compared with the same period in 2005, reversing a four-year decline. A police spokeswoman said gang violence has been a contributing factor. (qu'elle surprise. Who we gonna take da gunz away frum, again?)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...n2304130.shtml

PS: Daley was elected mayor April 4, 1989, to complete the term of the late Harold Washington. He was re-elected in 1991, 1995 and 1999 by overwhelming margins.

[Jedburgh]

The Economist, 17 May 08: The Mystery of Violence

....Chicago's muddled response frustrates David Kennedy of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He notes that in the 1990s Boston brought together federal, state and local agencies, community groups, religious leaders and others (including himself) to fight violence. A main feature of the scheme was to locate gang members and tell them that help and services were available, but that violence would be met with severe penalties. If someone was killed, not only would prosecutors pursue the killer, but police would nail other gang members for smaller crimes. This would create an economic disincentive to kill—shooting a rival would badly disrupt gang business. The programme was launched in 1996. Youth murders plummeted. Long-term studies show a two-thirds drop.

Chicago has its own version of this strategy in six police districts, but it has been all but ignored in the current cacophony. A federal initiative called Project Safe Neighbourhoods (PSN) pays for the programme; the federal district attorney directs it. Chicago's PSN includes tough gun policing, federal prosecutions and—most important, or so researchers found—meetings with former felons to deter them from returning to crime. Over PSN's first two years, the districts it targeted saw a 37% drop in quarterly homicide rates. The challenge now is to help PSN expand. Chicago's leaders must use many tools to fight violence. One is right under their noses.