* FiveThirtyEight ran the numbers on the recent drop in Chicago police activity and increase in crime…
Chicago police officers have said they are confused by public scrutiny in the wake of the [Laquan McDonald] video’s release and have pointed to new and burdensome paperwork as discouraging them from making street stops and engaging in other “proactive policing.” Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged that officers might have been more uncertain since the release of the video but suggested that the majority of the change was due to the paperwork requirements. Late last month, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel appointed a new interim police chief, Eddie Johnson, in the hopes of improving department morale. Johnson faces the prospect of the bloodiest year since at least 2003: Chicago is on pace for roughly 570 homicides and nearly 2,100 nonfatal shooting incidents, numbers that could be even higher if the violence increases with warmer weather.
After some cities saw a rise in crime last year, police chiefs and even the head of the FBI suggested that the United States was experiencing a “Ferguson effect”: Police officers sensitive to public scrutiny in the wake of protests over the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, were pulling back on police work, the theory went, and emboldened criminals were seizing their chance. The evidence for any such effect nationally was mixed — our colleague Carl Bialik analyzed crime data from 60 major cities in September and found an increase in homicides in some places, but a decrease in others. Chicago had seen a 20 percent increase in homicides from the year before, but, as Carl noted, crime statistics are volatile.
The spike in gun violence in Chicago since the end of November, though, is too sharp to be explained by seasonal fluctuations or chance. There have been 175 homicides and approximately 675 nonfatal shooting incidents1 from Dec. 1 through March 31, according to our analysis of city data.2 The 69 percent drop in the nonfatal shooting arrest rate and the 48 percent drop in the homicide arrest rate since the video’s release also cannot be explained by temperature or bad luck. Even though crime statistics can see a good amount of variation from year to year and from month to month, this spike in gun violence is statistically significant, and the falling arrest numbers suggest real changes in the process of policing in Chicago since the video’s release. […]
Guglielmi placed much of the blame for the decline in proactive policing on a new form that must be filled out after some interactions with members of the public, a result of the city’s August 2015 settlement with the American Civil Liberties Union over the department’s “stop and frisk” program. The form, called an investigatory stop report, is much longer than the contact cards it replaces and can take hours to complete after some encounters. Officers told the Chicago Sun-Times in January that an “ACLU effect” was driving a reduction in police activity. “The rules of the game changed on Jan. 1,” Guglielmi said.
Although the ISR may be playing a minor role in curbing proactive policing, it doesn’t appear to be the major reason behind the downward trend in arrests. The ISR was implemented on Jan. 1, 38 days after the release of the Laquan McDonald video. In that five-week span, the overall arrest rate fell from 26 percent to 19 percent. Since Jan. 1, the overall arrest rate has risen slightly. The onset of the decline in arrests significantly predates the ISR, and arrests have actually increased since it was introduced, though they are occurring less frequently than they did in 2015.
Ander noted that several less controversial crime prevention and intervention resources in Chicago have had their funding cut recently because of a state budget crisis in Illinois, perhaps contributing to violence in the most troubled neighborhoods.
- Officer Friendly - Tuesday, Apr 12, 16 @ 12:07 pm:
IMO the Chicago Police Department has been on a semi-strike since the MacDonald video was released. That’s why the shootings have gone through the roof. They’re not doing their jobs at 100 percent.
- crazybleedingheart - Tuesday, Apr 12, 16 @ 12:13 pm:
Silver should stick to doing stats, not guessing what they mean.
- ArchPundit - Tuesday, Apr 12, 16 @ 12:22 pm:
===Silver should stick to doing stats
He tends to over interpret the meaning. He’s pretty clear that he thinks prediction is the end result of stats and given his background that makes some sense. Many of us are more concerned with explanation and then hopefully prediction.
Much of this avoids the literature by criminologists. Chicago’s clearance rate was already really low by historical standards in 2012 so this is a long term problem with solving homicides in Chicago, not something new.
Without knowing that context, the 538 piece is pretty useless. It’s entirely possible to have fluctuations that are statistically significant and represent several factors–not just one as they usually try to boil it down to.
- No Use For A Name - Tuesday, Apr 12, 16 @ 12:32 pm:
The overall arrest rate fell during the five-week span between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve? That seems an insufficient sample to support the conclusions found in the article. There may have been less crime during the holidays, or officers may have been more lenient in using their discretion in an effort to to help rehabilitate community ties. The number of murders also decreased slightly for the same five weeks in 2014 compared to 2015, so there may simply have been a comparable 6 percent reduction in crime at the time.
If ’street stops’ and other forms of ‘proactive’ policing also decreased after the video was released and not just after January 1, that would support these conclusions. As it is, the data seems too incomplete to state this unequivocally.
- Gooner - Tuesday, Apr 12, 16 @ 1:28 pm:
Chicago Police officers have walked an interesting line since at least the mid-1990s when I worked for the union.
Officers who make arrests get complaints.
Officers who do not make arrests rarely get complaints.
For a long time, officers viewed complaints as just another part of their job, like sitting in traffic. If they made drug arrests, the drug dealers would deliberately target those officers for beefs. Doing your job meant that you got used to seeing people like me at Roosevelt and Wabash where we then dictated a statement to the investigator. It also meant that despite my efforts, they would at times get a few days off work. Guilt or innocence didn’t really matter in the process.
It seems like now that balance is moving. Three days off for a bad beef is one thing. With all the attention, the consequences are more likely be more severe.
While there has long been some cultural issues at CPD, it seems like now the POs are simply deciding that it is no longer worth it.
I really can’t say that I blame them. Well more should have been done about some of the issues of silence towards real abuse earlier, this constant drum beat of hatred towards the police takes its toll.
- Payback - Tuesday, Apr 12, 16 @ 1:39 pm:
“Guglielmi placed much of the blame for the decline in proactive policing on a new form that must be filled out after some interactions with members of the public…” Boo hoo. Police will always seek to maintain lack of accountability.
The unnamed issue with interactions between police and the public is anonymous encounters where the police are not in uniform and cannot be identified. The use of unmarked cars and plainclothes police has spread to the smallest towns in Illinois, not just Chicago.
Legitimate authority presents itself as such. I knew Chicago police who deliberately flipped down the license plates on their Chevy cars in the 1990’s.
- Tone - Tuesday, Apr 12, 16 @ 2:08 pm:
It will only get worse with the triumvirate of Prekwinkle, Foxx and Dart running the County.
- Fairness and Fairness Only - Tuesday, Apr 12, 16 @ 9:26 pm:
The Axe Files with David Axelrod’s interview with Jamie Kalven regarding the LaQuan McDonald reporting and other South Side Chicago activity is worth a listen.