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It’s not as clear as it looks

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* This is a must-read story from WBEZ…

The one chance for Chicago City Council members to question Eddie Johnson before approving him as police superintendent was an April 12 council hearing.

The city’s murder numbers were way up. But the police department was still staggering from the fallout of a video that showed an officer fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

The number of police stops had fallen off a cliff.

Some council members wanted Johnson to tell how he would increase that number. “How do we get the officers to do it?” Alderman Patrick Daley Thompson asked.

Johnson answered that the department had taken one step already. It had trimmed back the length of a report that officers had to fill out for each stop. “Every week we’re seeing [an] uptick in terms of the utilization of those forms,” he said. “So we’ll get there.”

Unquestioned at the hearing was an assumption: Police stops make the community safer.

But police department datasets reveal a complicated picture. The records, obtained by WBEZ through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, show negative trends as officers reported more stops: The gun seizures dropped, detectives solved fewer murders, and a decade-long decline in gun violence ended.

Those numbers did not improve as the department developed one of the most intense stop-and-frisk programs in the nation.

Go read the whole thing.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 2:44 pm

Comments

–But police department datasets reveal a complicated picture. The records, obtained by WBEZ thrBut police department datasets reveal a complicated picture. The records, obtained by WBEZ through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, show negative trends as officers reported more stops: The gun seizures dropped, detectives solved fewer murders, and a decade-long decline in gun violence ended.ough the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, show negative trends as officers reported more stops: The gun seizures dropped, detectives solved fewer murders, and a decade-long decline in gun violence ended.–

Great journalism by WBEZ.

The so-called “Ferguson Effect” was self-serving political snake-oil from the get-go.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 2:51 pm
Chicago Stop and Frisk not leading to an arrest- 250,000 people in summer 2014
70% African American
Cook County MJ arrests over last 5 years
70% African American

When you have your hands in certain peoples pockets, certain people end up getting in trouble for something done at the same rate across cultures. For example, Obama and Clinton might not have made it to the Presidency. No FAFSA with a conviction.

Until we decide as a City, County, State, Country that the ends do not justify the means and that it is not helpful to ruin young African American mens’ lives with a draconian law just because you might end up also incarcerating a bad kid, no progress can be made on community buy in.
Change the law.

Comment by Biker Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 3:08 pm
It’s critical to realize that the root of these findings is NOT that more stops result in more violence. It’s the fact that tying an officer’s perceived performance to the number of stops results in less real, effective police work. That’s not a crime issue, nor is it a “blue flu”-type protest issue. It’s entirely a police governance issue.

That, in turn, becomes a problem for the Mayor. It’s not the city getting more violent; it’s the police essentially having their job performance metrics (and man do I hate that word!) re-engineered in such a way that investigative work is negatively effected. This is also entirely separate from police/race issues (ala the Laquan McDonald case), which of course need to be addressed, but which must not be drawn into the same debate as this. This is essentially a resources and evaluation problem internal to the department.

Comment by The Man on 6 Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 3:23 pm
Real numbers: good for your ailing system of government.

Comment by Earnest Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 4:15 pm
@BIKER

Change the law to what? I don’t have the figures at my fingertips, but I believe the vast majority of crimes are committed by relatively small number of habitual criminals. Get THOSE folks off the streets and the community will be safer.

Work to build stronger two parent families in African American communities and there’s less chance of the kids joining a gang to be in their “family” and fewer kids commit crimes and go to jail.

Laws are fairly easy to change, dysfunctional and destructive culture change is hard. The problem is that if you don’t change the culture, the problems will remain regardless of what well intentioned law you put on the books.

Comment by Zonker Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 4:19 pm
The problem also is with police culture in Chicago. It’s been a while since I’ve had acquaintances get jobs in the police and FPD or as EMTs, but up until a few years ago you didn’t get those jobs unless you kissed the ring of Madigan or one of his Ward bosses. Sometimes patronage isn’t the best way to hire for jobs where you need courage, dedication, and such a passion for the community that you’d put your life in the line for it.

Comment by Zonker Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 4:25 pm
@Zonkers, legalize it. Happy to deal with the rest after that, but first we need to take away a false career path. To me, a 17 year old selling drugs on the corner with a gun in his back pocket is not preferable to a transaction behind a counter protected by police. Your thoughts?

Comment by Biker Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 4:26 pm
The Top Cop will not hold this job for longer than 24 months! I hope he does a great job but he or the Mayor can’t change culture over night.

Comment by Down State Paul Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 4:39 pm
Zonker.

You must of started cinco da mayo early. Are you saying that all 12,000 Cpd & 3000 plus CFD are friends of Madigan. Listen I know he is the boogeyman but nope not close. More likely to get help getting one of those jobs from a neighborhood Clergyman than a politician nowadays.

Comment by Pure BS Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 5:13 pm
This outstanding reporting was made possible by the generous support of listeners… like YOU.
www.wbez.org

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 5:49 pm
‘Work to build stronger two parent families in African American communities and there’s less chance of the kids joining a gang to be in their “family” and fewer kids commit crimes and go to jail.’

You’ve inverted cause and effect. If you stop imprisoning black folks for little or nothing, and pay workers a living wage, black families will take care of themselves.

– MrJM

Comment by MrJM Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 5:54 pm
If you saturate an area with representatives of the government (as police are), they have to do something to justify their presence. What do we expect the police to do to justify their days on the beat. Well, how about stopping folks who look troublesome according to the prejudices du jour and filling out a form saying you did. Lock a few of ‘em up. Charge them a few fines to plump up government coffers.

Maybe we should, instead, saturate the area with marriage counselors. They could tell everybody they stop to get married and, presto, all our problems will go away.

Comment by Cassandra Thursday, May 5, 16 @ 6:18 pm