I haven’t been seriously following all the winger stories about how Rahm turned Chicago into a crime-ridden hell hole, but I guess I just assumed the murder rate there must be high in some way. Not so:
In 2012, Chicago witnessed more than 500 killings…. As of Dec. 30, Chicago had reported 413 homicides, a 17 percent drop from the same period a year before and the fewest killings to date since 1965, city officials said.
[ā¦..]… a Yale University analysis says that despite Chicago’s grim numbers, the city’s crime rate is not exceptional when compared with other large cities. It ranks Chicago 19th, with violent crime levels similar to those of Houston or Minneapolis, and half that of Detroit or St. Louis.
Baud
I don’t trust anything I come across anymore. Everything is a lie.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
I don’t think it’s coincidence that Rahm can be anagrammed “Harm”.
gene108
The cities that are really bad are the ones, where all the industry has left like Camden, NJ. They aren’t big cities, population wise, but they have gone from bad to worse, since 2008.
Otherwise many cities have rebuilt their base of business and some level of renewal is going on and crime rates are dropping.
Groucho48
“Hello” he lied, sums up the expectations folks should have for anything that comes out of the right.
Mike in NC
Media is already speculating that since DeBlasio is a Dem, crime is going to skyrocket in NYC in 2014. That was on the evening news.
Baud
@Mike in NC:
Fixed for accuracy.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mike in NC: Of course, Dems are soft on crime and weak on security.
Biff Longbotham
Chicago is not and was not a “crime-ridden hell hole”. The sad fact is that unless you happen to have the ill luck (for purposes of these stats only, I hasten to add) of being young and swarthy, murder in Chicago (and elsewhere) tends to happen to ‘those people’. The real scandal, I’ve always thought, is the number of young women of color, often engaged in prostitution (but not exclusively) that are murdered or otherwise disappear without any fanfare or notice. Rather, we get treated to missing white woman syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome).
Villago Delenda Est
Everything the wingers spout off about has no basis in any objective reality that has any validity at all.
What’s in the bubble of cretinous stupid should stay in the bubble.
rda909
Pretty much sums up my holiday season. Can’t wait to get back to work. Whew!
MikeJ
I recently read an article that showed that yes, Chicago has a higher murder rate than Bumfuck, Nebraska, but you were still twice as likely to be dead at the end of the year if you live in the sticks.So many more people are killed in car accidents in the middle of nowhere that it more than made up for the lower murder rate. And dead is dead. Doesn’t really matter if somebody intended to kill you or not.
Keith G
Da Mayor’s administration has problems, but worsening crime stats is not one of them. Insofar as there is an image disconnect, it might be due to the recent past when crime rate were more of an issue and the fact that Chicago just gets a whole lot of media attention, period.
Remember that a certain sitting president has talked about the results of gun violence in his “hometown”.
j
Happy New Year! Same old lies.
The murder rate is half of what it was during Reagan’s 8 years, HW’s 4 years, Clinton’s 8 years, and lower than any time during W’s 8 year reign of error. The only difference is that FOX wasn’t constantly harping about it when Bush was lying us into wars, and FOX was enabling him.
Homicides in Chicago by year
1928: 399[6]
1965: 395[7]
1973: 864[8]
1974: 970[9]
1988: 660[10]
1989: 742[11]
1990: 851[12]
1991: 927[13]
1992: 943[13]
1993: 855[13]
1994: 931[13]
1995: 828[13]
1996: 796[13]
1997: 761[13]
1998: 704[13]
1999: 643[13]
2000: 633[13]
2001: 667[13]
2002: 656[13]
2003: 601[13]
2004: 453[13]
2005: 451[13]
2006: 471[13]
2007: 448[13]
2008: 513[13]
2009: 459[13]
2010: 436[13]
2011: 435[13]
2012: 516[14]
2013: 415[15]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Chicago
There was a steady decline for years, with the exception of a spike 2012, when the last of the high rise projects were finally bulldozed (this is also the reason those schools were closed, BYW) and the gangs were scattered to the four corners of whatever other turf they decided to set up business and shoot it out with each other.
FOX and its Klansmen think that by portraying Chicago as some USA Somalia is a reflection on Obama.
In that case, using FOX logic, Palin is the Queen of the Meth Labs and Princess of STD’s. After all, she used to live there.
Steeplejack
@efgoldman:
Yeah, weird weather ahead. Weāve been perking along in NoVa with highs in the low 40s and lows around freezingāseasonally appropriateābut suddenly the high Friday is supposed to be 25Ā° and the overnight Friday-Saturday low 16Ā°. Ā”Caramba! Then back to the normal for a few days, then 20Ā° and 13Ā° next Tuesday. WTF!
Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler)
@rda909:
ENVIOUS! Of you rda909.
Hell, where is it that you work that’s better than such a ‘festive’ holiday …or do you just need some rest?
As for me…
ā¦Even that there would be a profound improvement, were I to …Jaggerize? Lyrically Stone? my holiday’s theme song.
[‘tear’ would be correct, ‘smile’ would be melancholic. Sigh.]
steverino
All these years I thought the lyric was “prime rate.” Hunh. I guess “crime rate” makes more sense.
Hal
I think the right wing version of Chicago is based on three things: Obama is from Chicago, Chicago has strict gun control laws, and now Rahm, which is really just right back to Obama.
Mike with a Mic
@Biff Longbotham:
Meh, that’s not worth getting all that worked up about, and it’s not all race either. We don’t give a shit what happens to white women when they happen to be trailer trash from flyover. People don’t care because they are dumb hicks and thus were probably some loser meth head which lands people in those situations.
It’s only when “good people” land up missing or dead that we care. And by good I mean middle class or rich from a nice suburb or one of the rich urban areas. Then people give a shit. As long as drugs, killings, and prostitution is shit that happens in trailer park Kentucky, coal area West Virginia, or the ghettos of Chicago people don’t give a shit. It’s a lower class problem, regardless of the race involved. Plus it lands people in jail, reduces competition for jobs, and helps make sure that middle class children will have a set inferiors they don’t have to compete with when they grow up. For the middle class and rich, keeping those places hell holes and making sure those people are fucked is in their own self interest.. most just don’t bother to admit it.
So lower class people dieing from drugs and prostitution, it means the system is working well. Middle class people being affected, means the system fucked up.
If anything we care about urban problems vastly more than rural problems. Here in NOVA the hellscape that is rural VA gets a lawn. Because the well off areas never have to deal with flyover. We get to ignore that and we prefer it that way. On the other hand problems in DC are close enough that it can affect middle class people going into the city for work or entertainment. Which is really what the current shit storm over Chicago is about. Nobody gave a fuck until it spilled over into areas where the middle class shops and eats in, then it was an outrage that something must be done about.
If history is any lesson they will solve it in the same way as DC, NYC, and Sanfran did… gentrify the shit out of it and fill it with upper class liberals and shove all the poors into another area. Declare crime solved and a new life for the city as a beacon of opportunity and economic growth. Wash hands, pat yourself on the back, and relax knowing another nice day shopping for electronics and eating sushi will not be ruined by a chance encounter with a crack addict. Then give all your donations to nice liberal shit like arts and parks, and praise the unionized police that keep the bums away.,
Mike with a Mic
@Steeplejack:
The DC area has always been like that. You can get mild as fuck winters and then all of a sudden POW, it’s in the 20’s in March/April and you get smacked with a snow storm.
@Hal:
Only partly. The crime/violence has spread out of the areas it’s normally in and started to hit areas the middle class is in. They didn’t care until it spilled over into shopping malls and eateries. Once it spills out of jewelry stores where middle managers with no taste go to buy TAG watches people will stop giving a fuck about it. The flash mobs in shopping malls is what sparked off the fear mongering this time.
It’s similar to the entire “knockout game” deal. Back in the 90’s kids ran around with hoodies on (security cameras in nice areas, best way to beat them) pulling the same shit here, though I heard of it as king making. Nobody gave a fuck, right up till it started happening in nice malls in MoCo, Georgetown, and Arlington…. then it was an epidemic. It was solved by stocking all the malls with security guards and harassing any under 30 male that wasn’t wearing khakis and a button up shirt. Which lead to several problems for me because skateboards and rollerblades were all of a sudden a marker that security should give you all sorts of shit. I got locked in the back of the mall multiple times.
Though to be fair, I understand it. Their methods were abusive as all hell and I blame that on them not knowing how to read body language. I can tell when someone is itching for a fight or when they are using clothes to hide from security cameras, namely from having done all that stupid shit as a kid.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike with a Mic: @Mike with a Mic: Cheap cynicism is a great way to start the new year.
rda909
@Dead Ernest (Thought Wrangler): Just need some rest. This whole marriage thing is working out really well so far!
Elmo
Re crime rates – something that shocked hell out of me when I moved from California to East TN, is the incredibly high crime rate in midsized cities like Knoxville. I was naive I guess, but I always thought of high crime areas as being a big-city phenomenon. Per capita they are really, really not. Per capita, places like Chattanooga and Birmingham are places you do not want to be, rather than Chicago or Boston or New York.
But those are Heartland towns, Real Murruca, and you never hear about the “crime problem” in those places.
WereBear
We just had our first murder in ten years. It was solved right away, the killer turned herself in. Untreated mental patient killed her 30 years older boyfriend.
We had a bank robbery six or seven years ago. The teller recognized the kid she used to babysit. Another quickly solved case.
Small towns.
Mike with a Mic
@Elmo:
Big coastal cities don’t like crime because of rich urban types. NYC is not made safe for the poor there. It’s made safe for rich Wall Street fuckers that throw Human Rights Campaign and Romney Campaign dinners and throw out the big bucks. Bloomberg has even admitted this and that his goal was to make the city the best place for the global elite. There’s no global citizens with important jobs and money worth protecting in TN really, not like there is in NYC.
Anoniminous
The strongest correlation for homicide is males 18 – 24. So to reduce homicide we need to abort more males.
Try THAT on the next wingnut pretending to understand sociology.
:-)
Anoniminous
@Anoniminous:
FYWP wouldn’t let me edit my comment.
It’s the statistics for suicide that look frightening.
Gin & Tonic
@rda909: I’m guessing it’s new for you.
barbequebob
while “to live in this town you must be tough, tough, tough, tough”,
some “whiskers on kittens” can give you that song a most comical interpretation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLAGhOetAk
TG Chicago
Fuck a Rahm.
Omnes Omnibus
@TG Chicago: Sure, but not for this.
Sherparick
@j: The story of the decline in violent crime over the last generation is one of the good news stories that are simply not told because they are “good news,” and also because they don’t conform with the dominant meme of our Zeitgeist that our cities become greater and greater urban hell holes as they become more dominated by people of color and that “Government can’t work.” A combination of more professional law enforcement, more stable neighborhoods (as the great urban migrations of Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians into Northern and coastal cities from the 1950s to 1990s slowed), and reduction of air pollution, particularly lead (see Kevin Drum) show that Government can work and improve the social welfare of the poor, working class, and middle class. So the rich don’t want to hear about it. Might mean that their taxes might go up.
HeartlandLiberal
We grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. But that was a lifetime ago. Sad to note that a recent study ranked it sixth most deadly city. Violent crime, sadly, is not down in Birmingham. Past 30 years living in the idyllic setting of a midwestern university town is quite a different experience.
Alex
The big thing with Chicago is that the murder rate went up in 2012, while in most other locations it went down.
It also (due to population) had the most murders overall, despite not having the highest murder rate.
Phil Perspective
@Keith G: People think crime is exploding because that’s all the stupid local TV news ever shows, besides the hyperactive weatherperson.
moderateindy
If you live in Chicago, or around Chicago, you know what a joke the idea of Chicago being a “dangerous” big city is. The shootings are all basically relegated to a few sections of the city that are extremely poor and gang infested. The crap that the people that reside there have to endure is truly unfathomable by the rest of us. But for the rest of the city; you take a little more precautions than you do in the burbs, but safety-wise it isn’t particularly different.
mclaren
@Baud:
And if everything is a lie, the statement that “everything is a lie” is a lie. Welcome to the Cretan paradox…
mclaren
Good catch, Doug, but you’re late to this party. The rate of violent crime in America has been plummeting for more than a decade now. Not just declining, the bottom has been falling out of the numbers. They’re way way wayyyyyyyyy down. As in “down to levels last seen in 1962.”
Looka here: this graph is stunning — violent crime per capita in America has absolutely plunged to rates we haven’t witnessed since the early Leave-it-to-Beaver 1960s.
What’s more, gun homicides are down a whopping 49% since their peak in the early 1990s. Yet the public doesn’t realize it.
Even better news: gun ownership is way way down per capita in America.
Source: “The declining culture of guns and violence in the United States,” The Monkey Cage, 21 July 2013.
Source “Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware ,” Pew Research Social & Demographic Trends, 7 May 2013.
Because people like me come from the hard sciences, we pay attention to the numbers and ignore the sensationalistic headlines. The numbers say America (as well as the world) is getting drastically more peaceful. America remains an outlier, a far more violent society than the rest of the world (Norway just shut down four of its prisons because there’s too little crime to keep ’em open), but even in an ultraviolent Mad-Max-Beyond-Thunderdome society like the United Snakes of Amnesia, the decline in crime remains striking.
This raises the very serious question:
Why the hell is America pissing away so many billions of dollars on paramilitary policing and SWAT tanks and SWAT teams and military weaponry for cops? If crime is plummeting, why the hell do we need all that?