More on CPD’s “strategic subject list”
Wednesday, May 11, 2016 - Posted by Rich Miller
* From yesterday…
[Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson] focused his remarks on how much of the bloodshed is being driven by about 1,300 individuals on the Police Department’s “strategic subject list” — those believed to be most prone to violence as a victim or offender.
About 78 percent of the homicide victims and about 84 percent of the nonfatal shooting victims this weekend were on the list, he said.
* The Tribune editorial board fleshed out the program today…
The list, generated daily from a computerized algorithm, assigns a score from 1 to 500 based on such factors as a person’s arrests and the activities of his associates. Gun charges play a key role. When Johnson chalked up much of the city’s violence to 1,300 people, he was referring to those with a score on the strategic subject list somewhere in the upper 200s or higher. We don’t know if Pierre Loury was on the list, but if 80 percent of the shootings during a bloody weekend were connected to a finite group of known individuals, that gives the criminal justice system a manageable place to focus attention.
CPD says it uses the list in different ways: to help in police work and to warn gang members on the list that they have a short window to change their ways or risk tragedy. They are offered help from social service agencies. Should the algorithmic clock of doom tick high enough, a police official may come to the residence to provide “custom notification.” Consider it a visit from Jacob Marley’s ghost.
This will not be enough to save the gangbangers who have made their choices and will kill or die because of them. For these miscreants with long rap sheets and bad judgment, doom may come. But the list provides a valuable warning for the rest of us: Repeat criminal offenders at the nexus of gangs, guns and drugs are a menace even greater and more concentrated than we might have imagined. Work with them if we can, but when they are convicted of serious crimes, put them away.
Keep them off the streets, for our safety and theirs.
- Ghost - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 10:17 am:
a military style interdiction isnt going to fix this. Police threats and coercion wont stop most of these folks. This solution does not address the underlying problem which places people in this kind of path.
We need to provide activites for kids to occupy them and feed accomplishments to deter them from gangs. we need good paying jobs and economic opportunities to deter older kids and young adults from quick cash crime and violence.
there will always be bad people who cant be helped, but a lot of the scope here is due to urban blight, and the lack of alternative programs and economic opportunities
- wordslinger - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 10:33 am:
–Work with them if we can, but when they are convicted of serious crimes, put them away.–
Wow, really going out on a limb there.
Are the Tribbies under the impression that gang members who already have multiple convictions aren’t “put away” after being convicted of a “serious crime?”
- Lobo Y Olla - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 10:40 am:
“Police threats and coercion wont stop most of these folks.”
Dude, that’s not how this works. If your background merits a high score and you are 2-3 degrees of separation say, from a shooting, a Sgt. or Lt. Will go out to your house and explain why they’re talking to you. They explain they know of your gang ties, your friend that got shot etc. in that capacity its similiar to the Feds Project Safe Neighborhoods. There’s no threats or coercion. It should also be noted that “the algorithm” takes much more into account than background. Gang ties, ties to recent acts of violence, social media posts, gang / narcotics intelligence are all variables.
This is data driven and really the best program out there right now that’s up and running. It’s a work-in-progress to be sure, but it’s nowhere near the jackbooted program you imply it is.
- Anonymous - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 10:40 am:
‘
- Anonymous - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 10:42 am:
A prison (justice system) turnstile that forever spins and tabulates non-violent mopes and sociopaths without discrimination .
- cdog - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 10:45 am:
“The list, generated daily from a computerized algorithm, assigns a score from 1 to 500 based on such factors as a person’s arrests and the activities of his associates.”
Mega-data holds many secrets. Very cool use of CPS resources.
God speed for those interacting with the 1300 and for those trying to keep the kids off the list.
- crazybleedingheart - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 10:53 am:
Follow the mounted officers in a parade with two open hands and end up with much the same thing.
- atsuishin - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 11:11 am:
==a military style interdiction isnt going to fix this. This solution does not address the underlying problem which places people in this kind of path.==
Has it been tried? parts of the city are as dangerous as a mexican slum which is tantamount to a human rights violation for the residents. Crime ridden cities such as bogota have successfully implemented military style “pacifications” leading to dramatic drops in crime. chicago can learn from them.
underlining problem is racial discrimination. how do you solve this? the poverty, jobless and high crime are all symptoms. If you have an implementable answer youll be wealthier than rauner. until then the focus needs to be on establishing law and order for s and w side residents.
- Conn Smythe - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 11:15 am:
“Are the Tribbies under the impression that gang members who already have multiple convictions aren’t “put away” after being convicted of a “serious crime?” ”
They’re not being put away for enough time to break up the cycle, word, which is the point.
- Lucky Pierre - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 11:30 am:
The failure to lock up these multiple offenders for longer terms goes right to the top. The Justice department has been advocating for a complete reversal of the successful Clinton crime bill from the 1990’s. President Clonton actually had to apologize for actually speaking the truth about how those policies made these poor neighborhoods much safer than they are today. It would be great if someone could ask the President how these failed Justice department policies have created chaos in Chicago.
- crazybleedingheart - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 11:30 am:
==enough time to break up the cycle==
People who don’t understand the first thing about prison often refer to it as a nowhere place where nothing happens.
But it’s real and something happens there.
Interesting that you assume it’s a time out from gang activity.
- independent - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 11:36 am:
In my downstate community historically we know that a few individuals can create chaos and promote most of our violence. When those folks were legally arrested and sent away our violence subsided. I think they need to legally remove the instigators while investing a lot of resources on improving community conditions. Without doing both they will not succeed at not creating new instigators
- proudstatetrooper - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 11:37 am:
==there will always be bad people who cant be helped, but a lot of the scope here is due to urban blight, and the lack of alternative programs and economic opportunities==
BINGO !! And all the proper policing in these areas isn’t going to change a thing because of this. Guess that +100M Quinn put in the safety programs in late 2010 & 2014 didn’t quite get us there.
- paddyrollingstone - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 12:08 pm:
I am not very hopeful about this situation. The only real cures to this problem, as others have noted, are education, opportunity, and families with two parents. The suffocation of poverty continues this tragic cycle with no end in sight.
- Angry Chicagoan - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 2:24 pm:
People aren’t putting a sufficient emphasis on how much basic order in the community is necessary, both imposed from outside and generated from within. It’s difficult for education in these areas to succeed, for safe passage to the job required for a better future even to be possible, to cover for the void left by a missing parent, if the security and culture of respect aren’t there for those things to happen.
- Payback - Wednesday, May 11, 16 @ 3:04 pm:
“Crime ridden cities such as bogota have successfully implemented military style “pacifications” leading to dramatic drops in crime. chicago can learn from them.”
So we should discard the U.S. Constitution and eight hundred years of the rule of law since the Magna Carta was signed and sink back into the feudal slime of martial law. Really “progressive” thinking.
Do you vote? I hope not. I had to pass a basic test on the Constitution when I was 17 in order to graduate high school. Basic concepts like separation of powers, checks and balances, and other pesky concepts that keep tyranny in check. God bless America.