McLean County Times

Chicago policing effectiveness has been dropping precipitously in recent years, with only 5% of major crimes resulting in an arrest in 2022, leading Republicans to blame Democratic lawmakers.

“Fresh, end-of-year city of Chicago data for 2022 reveal that arrests were made for only 5% of offenses in Chicago’s major crime categories,” Wirepoints reported earlier this month. That’s half the already-low solve rate of 10% in 2019.  

When asked what that says about the direction of the city, state Sen. Win Stoller (R-Peoria) was blunt.

“I think it’s an indication of the soft-on-crime policies that are being pushed by Democrats in control,” he told the McLean County Times. “When you don’t hold criminals accountable and don’t prosecute them to the full extent of the law, I would imagine law enforcement becomes demoralized in doing their jobs.”

Arrest rates varied by the type of “major crime,” which is broken down into seven categories that cities have long reported to the federal government. The seven major crime categories are: homicide, criminal sexual assault, robbery, aggravated battery, burglary, theft, and theft of motor vehicles.

Chicago’s arrest rate for homicide was the best of all categories, at 28%, but that’s down from 41% of slaying cases resulting in arrest in 2020, and a 33% arrest rate for homicides in 2021.

Aggravated battery had the next best arrest rate, with 16% of cases ending in arrest, but that means more than four out of five cases go unsolved. The rates for the other five major crime categories were no higher than 5%.

Stoller says it’s time for the city to get its priorities in order and give police the support they need to do their job instead of restricting everything they do.

“We need to stop exalting criminals and hold them accountable for what they do. We need to stop making them the victims,” Stoller said.