Quote:
Originally Posted by UPChicago
Violent criminals need to be taken off the streets surely but we don't need to waste tax dollars detaining non-violent offenders when there are much cheaper alternatives in the form of home monitoring. People fail to understand that we are actually taking resources away from law enforcement when we focus on trying to detain all criminal regardless of the severity of the offense. It cost 55k to detain a person for a year, money that could go towards hiring detectives who could actually boost the clearance rate which would be more effective in deterring violent crime. Its time for people to let go of this failed notion that if everyone who committed a crime isn't behind bars than it is considered being soft on crime that's a false choice.
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I fail to see how things like the following are particularly helpful:
-downgrading the severity of juvenile carjacking resulting in an ongoing spike in juvenile carjacking
-no longer prosecuting for driving on a suspended license or without a license (I personally consider these violent offenses because of the extent to which it is endangering others); Kim Foxx has done this and it promotes a culture of lawlessness.
-no longer prosecuting major thefts as felonies; again, Kim Foxx and a culture of lawlessness
-lowering bond amounts for a whole range of alleged crimes including domestic violence (see recent Tribune pieces from this week; this is on the court system)
The helpless police departments just arrest the same knuckleheads over and over and they're back on the street in no time, because we've somehow defined the goal of our criminal justice system as "reduce the jail population" as opposed to punishing crime, protecting society, or other more common notions of what it's there for.
This is having a measurable impact on the South Side.
Robberies in Hyde Park are up 50% year over year, there are now regular muggings during daylight evening hours in the neighborhood and on the lakefront trail.
Every Halloween now, somewhere between 500-1000 teens organize The Purge online, form a rampaging mob while shop owners on 53rd street rush to lock their doors and close early while the mob smashes and grabs what they can and throws firecrackers into cars while the police look on and politely ask them to move along and maybe leave the neighborhood, arresting no one (and why should they, it's not like there will be any actual legal consequences other than maybe spending a night locked up). A recent fun spree in the neighborhood has been somewhere between 10-15 home invasion robberies that haven't been particularly well publicized.
One of my favorites was last summer or fall, when some jabronis were spraying bullets at each other while standing up through the sunroofs of their cars on Hyde Park Boulevard, and then proceeded to carjack a woman on Lakeshore Drive to get to the hospital.
The SJW set then acts like the problem is the Lincoln Yards TIF and insufficient publicly-funded after-school activities. Many victims themselves don't bother cooperating with the police, let alone witnesses; often this is as stupid as police = evil and not even about fear of gang retaliation. You think the problem with the low homicide clearance rate is not knowing who did it, or not having a strong enough case to make a charge stick because no one's willing to talk about it?
Oh, and have you ridden the Green Line or Metra Electric lately? Hope you enjoy commuting through clouds of pot smoke (possession and use of which in any setting in most quantities has also been de facto decriminalized so the police don't bother trying to enforce or prevent antisocial usage).
It's been eye-opening living back on the south side, it's a very different perspective than in the Green Zone neighborhoods where there is still some semblance of law and order. Most normal people eventually vote with their feet. tup is exactly right, the result of this ongoing idiocy is ever more bifurcation of the city into tolerable zones and lawless hellscapes.