I haven’t been able to work this into a post and I’m running out of time so I’m just dumping it here. One of the things that has struck me is that both of our mayoral candidates are operating under weak premises. I’ll start with Paul Vallas.
Vallas assumes that if you add more police officers the city will be more secure and have less crime. The evidence for that is weak. If it were true, Chicago would be the most secure major metropolitan area with the least crime: it has the most police officers per 100K population of any major metropolitan area. Whether you think crime is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same the relationship between police officers per capita and crime is weak. I’ve mentioned it before but there was a sort of controlled experiment on that some years back in Omaha IIRC. They found it didn’t make much difference.
He hasn’t mentioned it but it doesn’t make much difference what law enforcement officers are paid, either. Chicago is high on that list as well.
Brandon Johnson is basing his campaign on “addressing the root causes of crime” without being too explicit about what they are. Based on his public statements it’s not unreasonable to infer that he thinks that those perpetrating crimes are victims. He wants to spend more on education and on social workers.
The evidence either of those measures is effective is pretty weak as well. For one thing spending more on education doesn’t do a darned thing when kids won’t attend school and that remains a problem. The truancy rate in Chicago schools is stubbornly high.
I don’t have any data on the effectiveness of social workers in reducing crime but, as we say in my home state, you’ll have to show me. I just don’t believe it.
As I’ve said before I think that the factor that dare no speak its name is social dysfunction in the black community. While I also believe that is a leftover from slavery, Jim Crow, the Great Migration, and the loss of manufacturing jobs Eastern and Midwestern American metro areas, that doesn’t excuse it now. Slavery was banned more than 150 years ago; Jim Crow is long gone; the Great Migration ended 70 years ago. Blaming households headed by (mostly) single women and out-of-wedlock births on racial bias is a stretch.
What can be done? Again, as I’ve said before City Hall, the City Council, the Chicago Police, the States Attorney, and judges all need to be rowing in the same direction and that’s against crime. Punishment for crime should be swift and sure. If trials took place on a timely basis it would weaken the arguments against cash bail as well. The bail system is downstream from a dysfunctional system of law enforcement.
School Choice is the only realistic, compassionate approach to education in an increasingly violent and diversity dominant environment.
Have compassion for the children.
In the mid 50’s and into about 1968 or so, the big cities paid and assigned Social Workers to each gang. They became a bit of status symbol for the gang and not much else. Don’t see how they do much good now when the appetite for chemical oblivion rages.
“One of the things that has struck me is that both of our mayoral candidates are operating under weak premises.”
You are asking for common sense. That’s in very short supply these days.
However, we do have Budweiser marketing using a tranny. So we’ve got that going for us…..
You are forgetting the Chicago police torturing people. Dysfunctional culture meets dysfunctional police and it doesnt go well.
Steve
I’m not forgetting it. I agree that unacceptable police conduct underpins a lack of trust of the police in Chicago’s black community. Jon Burge’s torture took place between 1972 and 1990. Short of a Wayback Machine there isn’t much we can do about that now. The social dysfunction continues.
Overall, it sounds like you are screwed, regardless of who wins.
Interesting piece on crime from Brookings. Lot of attention to Chicago.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-geography-of-crime-in-four-u-s-cities-perceptions-and-reality/
Steve