Do you think Chicago crime rate will one day be like Toronto or NYC ? (Atlanta: school, closing)

[Chicagoland60426]

Chicago saw an increase in murder rate by 18 percent this year and the police said that if it keeps up, Chicago homicide number will be back to the 500s again. NYC with 8 million people is safer than Chicago and is now the safest big city in America; Toronto, Canada is similar size with Chicago with 2.5 million people living in the city limits, but the crime rate is extremely low for its size averaging less than 100 homicides per year vs. over 400 in Chicago. I want to know in your opinion do you think Chicago will ever have a crime rate low & become safe as Toronto or NYC ? And do you think this can happen before the 2016 Olympics ?

[analyticalkeys]

Before 2016.. doubtful. Can it happen? Yes, it could, but it would take the right kind of changes, and you'd need to find a leader capable of that. Now presupposing that Chicago does get the Olympics like so many are thinking.. it's really not such a great thing. The Olympics seem like an encouragement to make the city safer, but in reality, it's a money waster that will prevent the city from becoming any better, and the city will probably suffer from it in the following years after the Olympics. No city wants the Olympics because of the financial ramifications, and well.. yea.

[brinegar312]

I don't think the 2016 games would get the murders to go down at all - crime and Chicago go hand-in-hand - this is the way it is here, apparently. I wondered the same stuff when I moved here, but I don't see any signs that homicide rates will slow. the ghetto's in this city are a lot worse than the ones I have seen out west.

[Attrill]

I think it is possible, and even likely. There have been a number of issues that make this year a bad year for homicides - gentrification forcing gangs into smaller areas, CPD having been leaderless for awhile and still waiting for a new contract, closing down of many housing projects, etc...

A lot of this needs to be kept in perspective too, here's the homicide numbers for the last 15 years or so:

1992: 943
1993: 931
1994: 929
1995: 827
1996: 789
1997: 759
1998: 704
1999: 641
2000: 628
2001: 666
2002: 647
2003: 598
2004: 448
2005: 449
2006: 467
2007: 442
2008: 291 as of 8/1

The year is not over, so we don't know exactly what the rate will be for this year. Most other crimes are down, and have been declining for years.

[noid_1985]

Originally Posted by Attrill

I think it is possible, and even likely. There have been a number of issues that make this year a bad year for homicides - gentrification forcing gangs into smaller areas, CPD having been leaderless for awhile and still waiting for a new contract, closing down of many housing projects, etc...

A lot of this needs to be kept in perspective too, here's the homicide numbers for the last 15 years or so:

1992: 943
1993: 931
1994: 929
1995: 827
1996: 789
1997: 759
1998: 704
1999: 641
2000: 628
2001: 666
2002: 647
2003: 598
2004: 448
2005: 449
2006: 467
2007: 442
2008: 291 as of 8/1

The year is not over, so we don't know exactly what the rate will be for this year. Most other crimes are down, and have been declining for years.

Wow- the 90s were bad....Crack really hit hard in Chicago...

[oakparkdude]

I saw somewhere on the internets that even back in the 1920s and 1930s, Chicago had a much higher rate of crime (or at least homicide) than NYC. So did Detroit for that matter. This is not some recent phenomenon resulting from the drug epidemics of the 1980s and 1990s. Its been around for almost a century.

[chitown97]

Chicago has always been known as the gangsta city ...from alcapone days to the Latin kings gang .and this is just gang crime....But chicago will rise ,if you look back and see how the city is changing little by little but it will change for the better....10 years ago all around the city from south,north,east to the west was bad ....now the crime has gone down in the east ,north and some west but the south continues with high crime ....a friend of mine is a youth councelor and he works with the dept of corrections with trouble teens and adults....he has learn alot since he came out of school and the changes are in the works .....

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by noid_1985

Wow- the 90s were bad....Crack really hit hard in Chicago...

It was bad, as were the mid 70's and mid 80's. Chicago's worst year was 1974 with 970 homicides. It is pretty amazing to see that the number of homicides was cut in half in 10 years (and during a time when the population of Chicago increased as well!).

This summer, and July especially, saw a lot of gang violence. There are signs of it dropping off. Everyblock shows 47 homicides in August, which is in line with past years and September could actually end up being lower than last year.

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by analyticalkeys

Before 2016.. doubtful.

The '96 Olympics in Atlanta didn't seem to improve the awful crime situation there. It remains more dangerous than Chicago.

[wickedripeplum]

The most striking thing about that list to me is the rather precipitous drop in murders between 2003 and 2004. Does anyone know if there was any particular reason for that?