Talk:Crime in Chicago

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 June 2021 and 31 July 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SergeantMarshalSnake.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

graffitti
someone fool with this the article. please rvert. no vdlajism. Boromir&#39;s Regret 21:51, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Big city
What is the definition of "big city"? What cities is Chicago being compared to in crime rates?--Parkwells (talk) 18:04, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

numbers problems
The sidebar and the main text (which is redundant) differ as to the number of homicides in 2006. Also, the sidebar text claims a source from 2005, which can't be accurate given the more recent numbers. Finally, reference [3] in the main text table is a broken link and doesn't match up with the third item in the References. Bhudson (talk) 22:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

198 homicides per 2,000,000 citizens is far less than 876 homicides for 3x2,000,000 citizens. London would have to be nearly 4 1/2 times larger just for the homicide rates to be the same. (MinusRusty (talk) 21:14, 16 August 2012 (UTC))

Criminal Records
I heard on a news show afew months ago that over 100,000 people living in Chicago have something bad againts their name e.g Arrest, Convictions, Resigned sex offenders, Rehabs. If someone would like to find proof for this sistick would be good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SoloWing3844 (talk • contribs) 09:29, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Homocides by year
We have a nice consistent source up until 2011. Why did we quote redeye for 2012? I kinda think we should remove it or replace using the same crime metrics. Who knows what standards redeye used, so it doesn't really work for comparison.Jasonnewyork (talk) 20:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)


 * That would be a great idea, except for the fact that prior source (Chicago PD) has not been updated since 2011. Considering that we are talking about the government of Cook County, Illinois here, which is not exactly an entity that is lamented for doing anything expeditiously, should we just ignore other RS's out there with statistics until they get around to it ? --Supaflyrobby (talk) 12:39, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I notice it states that the violent crime rate rose mid-2010 and mentions the new Mayor, with a link to a story citing budget cuts as the reason, but no mention is made of the handgun ban being stuck down in June of 2010. Seems like that would be pertinent to the situation too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:240:4600:7DEC:89C5:CA23:6950:FE98 (talk) 22:00, 3 October 2017 (UTC)  The Tribune gives 2 more murders for 1986. For 2021, it gives 797, but says the real number is higher  (over 1K) because Interstate shootings are excluded. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/criminal-justice/ct-2021-homicides-final-20220103-lrpzuh5nsjhspmos3edrzxu2ei-story.html The mid-year population of the city was estimated by the census bureau to have been 2,696,555. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/chicagocityillinois,US/PST045221. That gives a rate of ~29.556.

Chiraq image
References of shootings.

Another point/topic that could be discussed is references to and occurrences of this Chicago violence in rap. "314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago" - Kanye West

Also, take a look at a Google News search of the word "Chiraq". Got references from Huff Post & Chicago Sun-Times. Chiraq itself has become a controversial word that should be incorporated into this article, or maybe its own article (Chiraq is currently a redirect, but all these references could be used to develop an article on the culture and society of Chicago's shootings) Google Trends on the search term "Chiraq" from October 2012 to October 2014.

Chicago Media Portrayal
Blatant political and opinionated over tones in this section, No facts to support qualitative claims. Entire section requested for deletion due to none fact based hyperbole and poor section structure. No unbiased citations, editorials only.

"However, recent Chicago homicide rates are nowhere near those seen in the '70s, '80s and '90s. In fact, the past decade has logged some of the lowest annual rates since 1965. Gun violence is the leading factor of Chicago deaths, and the media portrays Chicago as one of the most, if not the most dangerous city in the United States of America, regardless of that information's accuracy"


 * I wholeheartedly agree, and while I think mention of the "Chiraq" phenomenon deserves inclusion in the article, rhetorical posturing does not. I have removed the section and would ask the original poster post here to the talk page so we can build consensus with other editors. Supaflyrobby (talk) 21:10, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

The recent deletion of this section removed several recent sources generally considered reliable, including the New York Times and the Pew Research Center and others. The characterization of these sources above as qualitative, biased, or editorial is unfounded. May I respectfully recommend caution and deliberation in removing relevant reliable sources brought to an article by a colleague. Please consider alternative summarizations of the sources, edit for tone, try to mine the sources for content that improves the article, try to correct before deleting reliable sources. Thank you. Hugh (talk) 17:19, 12 November 2015 (UTC)


 * http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/01/07/why-fox-news-lost-interest-in-chicago-murders/197454
 * http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/14/despite-recent-shootings-chicago-nowhere-near-u-s-murder-capital/
 * http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/29/us/where-50000-guns-in-chicago-came-from.html
 * http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/07/30/despite-media-coverage-chicago-violence-down-significantly-from-20-years-ago/
 * http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/07/30/despite-media-coverage-chicago-violence-down-significantly-from-20-years-ago/

Hugh (talk) 18:11, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Stop and Frisk
I was considering adding a section to the article on this highly controversial CPD tactic which garnered a great deal of press in the early part of 2015 and drew plenty of attention from the ACLU and others. Though perhaps it might be more appropriate on the CPD article? Anyone have thoughts?Supaflyrobby (talk) 04:14, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree stop & frisk in Chicago is noteworthy in reliable sources, and a due weight topic in police-community relations if not crime, something of a precursor to the current activism around other police misconduct. Recently the mayor is in multiple reliable sources citing his reforms in the area of stop & frisk as evidence of his sensitivity to the community. Hugh (talk) 20:49, 17 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Excellent, I will has out a section sometime in the near future. I am a little pressed for time of late with the holidays upon us, but I will get something on stop and frisk developed soon (or feel free to help a brotha out).Supaflyrobby (talk) 00:55, 18 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I added a paragraph on stop and frisk, and some associated statistics.--Supaflyrobby (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Some comments on the homicide chart
The homicide chart represents a lot of work, thanks to all for the formidable elbow grease. It is based mostly on annual police reports, which on Wikipedia are considered primary sources. Homicides in Chicago have been the subject of vast secondary sources, doesn't one have a decent time series chart? The few sentences of discussion of differentials in health care as important in interpreting shootings and homicide stats, and the few sentences bringing in the point of view of those who question police stats, is an excellent start toward balance, but the homicide chart, alone in its own subsection, seems to have no immediately applicable discussion or interpretation in the article text. Given the well-known controversies in reliable sources on the categorizations in the stats, does devoting this space to a homicide plot based on CPD reports sort of demand the balance of a shootings plot, or a violent crime plot? CPD talks about the homicide rate, shootings not so much. I think we can plot data from multiple sources on the same graph, but might we be more explicit, for example different colors? What do you think? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 20:43, 17 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Hugh. I know at one one time Redeye had homicides by year charts, but upon looking around it seems those are no longer online. The Trib also has charts, but none specific to homicides and shootings. They just lump everything together under the "violent crime" heading. Probably the best that I know of (though it is a questionable RS), is HeyJackass as those folks meticulously graph and plot shootings and homicides, including the mysterious "death investigations" that CPD always manages to neglect to add to totals. Despite the rather juvenile URL, the guys that do the research for the site do know their shit, so much so that I highly suspect that a least one of their contributors is a cop, or former cop. I would be willing to bet there is a badge there someplace. Anyway, the source data they use for their stats is legitimate. Look it over and see what you think. I am more than open to your ideas though, so let's put our heads together.Supaflyrobby (talk) 00:53, 18 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Oh, and as to the medical/gunshot survivability factor, I suppose I could hash that out a bit more. In a nutshell, Cook County EMT's and trauma physicians took a page out of the United States Army's book for treating gunshot wounds. The source used, and several others, fleshes this out in far more detail. While interesting, I am not sure if this is inclusion worthy. Though I have read some sources which draw a correlation based upon the fact that there are less homicides even though more people are shot.


 * Ditto on the hospital issue. Interesting, but not sure if further detail is needed. Basically, closer proximity facilities designed to treat patients like gunshot victims means increased survivability. There are numerous articles on the activism surrounding the opening of the new trauma center, but that would stray a bit from the core topic at hand. Supaflyrobby (talk) 01:25, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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2015 UIC PoliSci Simpson lab Illinois corruption report
These reports may be useful for the public corruption section. The reports are extremely well-referenced to newspapers commonly available in online databases.

2015: A Banner Year in Illinois Corruption, Anti-Corruption Report #9

Release Date: March 9, 2016

http://pols.uic.edu/political-science/chicago-politics


 * Good catch, and the material is fantastic. I may expand the corruption section soon. I also want to make a section on history, highlighting the Capone and subsequent eras leading up to the present at some point as well.

--Supaflyrobby (talk) 14:53, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Rob. Thanks for your contributions. Berrios has not been indicted let alone convicted; technically, Berrios is not a criminal. With all the indictments and convictions for public corruption available to us, is a paragraph on Berrios due in our article "Crime in Chicago"? What do you think? Thanks again. Hugh (talk) 18:46, 20 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The section is about corruption, and while Berrios is clearly corrupt, I would agree that his actions skirt the fine line between illegal and unethical that all of us in Chicago know so well. A court and the ethics board has rendered a judgement of guilt (and in the case of the ethics board) a $10,000 fine that he managed to get tossed on grounds that they had no authority to punish him. That said, being a piece of shit, in and of itself, is certainly not illegal. Feel free to remove it, and thanks for keeping me on point/task. I will, at some point, expand the section on some other notable criminal case --Supaflyrobby (talk) 20:21, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Dead Chicago crime data links
There are more than two dozen. I found the new locations here for the pre-1991 data and here for '91-2011 data. Apart from doing so manually one by one, I'm unsure how to replace links en masse, so I wanted to see if a ref expert could do it quicker. Fdssdf (talk) 18:33, 20 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately I am little help when it comes to formatting/tools, so hopefully someone with a solution comes along as replacing them all manually will be a pain.

--Supaflyrobby (talk) 18:45, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Problems with the numbers in the "Overview" section
Vandalism by "Raven50034" ruined a whole bunch of the numbers in the overview: see the diffs on October 22nd 2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Crime_in_Chicago&diff=prev&oldid=745704201

examples: 60 Shot on 4th of July; vandalized to 876 500 murders -> 878 murders

I did not see any statistics in the given sources to back up these ridiculous numbers.

I'm going to start undoing these changes (they have to be done manually at this point). Please keep your eyes out for vandalism before you make an edit to the page.

DrNoBrain (talk) 04:30, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I am normally fairly vigilant about catching vandals as the page is on my watch list, but been quite busy of late. Thanks for catching it.

--Supaflyrobby (talk) 13:29, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Extraneous Information
Part of the reason why good figures and information are hard to maintain in these types of articles is due to extraneous information. I don't think there is any need to keep a month by month tally of how many people were killed and shot each weekend. Certainly it doesn't need to be done in paragraph form (tables are better).

I would like to dramatically reduce the amount of information on this page as much of it is poorly sourced and frequently vandalized. Let's keep the page succinct but accurate.

Thoughts?

DrNoBrain (talk) 04:30, 25 October 2016 (UTC)


 * What, specifically, are you proposing? And what do you feel is not adequately sourced?

--Supaflyrobby (talk) 13:30, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Annual murder totals in Chicago by year
the Y axis on the graph doesn't make any sense and doesn't seems to match the numbers, 132.76.61.52 (talk) 10:18, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

What is with the new homicides graph?
The new graph and information for homicides by year is completely wrong. It shows recent years, such as 2012 and 2013 as having well over 600 homicides, when those years saw more like 400-450. Not to mention that the graph is completely just--wrong. I don't even need to describe it, just look at it. I'd fix it, but unfortunately I don't really know how, and I don't want to bother trying to figure it out. But someone definitely needs to fix something that should honestly have already been fixed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.222.60.203 (talk) 03:56, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I think I fixed it, at least I made it match the values in the table underneath (using highest value when there were more than one). There were many erroneous values as well as a typo which apparently flipped the axis. W Scott Lincoln 16:34, 8 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. I tried a few times but could never figure it out. It looks much better now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.222.60.203 (talk) 00:23, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:07, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Chicago Race and Ethnicity 2010.jpg

Severe lack of broad historical coverage/context
This article only provides an overview to modern crime in Chicago. It, therefore, lacks a great amount of info that an article titled "crime in Chicago" should need to cover. For instance, prohibition era gang activity (such as that by Al Capone and his contemporaries), 19th century crime (such as the enterprises operated by Michael Cassius McDonald) among other things. SecretName101 (talk) 09:14, 21 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Look to Crime in New York City as an example of an article with better coverage on a city's history of crime. SecretName101 (talk) 09:16, 21 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Absolutely! I'm from Germany and "Chicago" over here is a long-standing synonym of "crime". One might say that a town is "turning into Chicago" or the like. I suppose it goes back to the 1920s and 30s, but I wanted to know a bit more about the background of crime in Chicago and was rather disappointed by the total lack of history in this article. 178.4.151.244 (talk) 00:26, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

The city's tolerance of crime
I'd like to propose that the following reliably sourced information be added to the article.

However, in other articles, editors have said that even though my sources are reliable, the text that I wrote was biased.

I acknowledge that I could use some help in that area.

So I was wondering if anyone had some ideas about how I could write these things in a more objective way. The sources are reliable. And I do think the article should include this kind of information. But I am asking for help to word it in a more objective way.

SquirrelHill1971 (talk) 05:21, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) In 2021, NBC news reported, "A teenager who pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a 15-year-old suburban Chicago boy has been sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service."
 * 2) In 2022, three people were murdered by a person who had previously been convicted of two earlier murders, but had been let of prison.
 * 3) In 2023, after two car thieves, age 14 and 17, drove recklessly and killed an innocent person, ABC News reported, “The two have been charged with just one misdemeanor count of criminal trespassing each.”
 * 4) In 2023, a 24 year-old-police officer named Areanah Preston was murdered by four teenagers. CBS News reported that all four teenagers had lengthy histories of violent crime, but had never spent any significant amount of time in prison.
 * 5) In 2023, a guy named Russel Long was murdered because the district attorney and judges had refused to lock up a violent serial criminal named Henry Graham.
 * You continue your POV pushing, even in the heading for this post. You have already been told that Wikipedia content needs to be accurate, neutral, and reliably sourced.
 * What exactly are you suggesting be added? We're not simply dropping your references into the article without any context, and this looks like more of your previous "soft on crime" push.


 * 1) You have already tried to add this first case, or something very similar, to some article. Once again you fail to mention that the perpetrator was tried as a juvenile. The rules and punishments are different for juveniles.
 * 2) In the second case you appear to be implying that there is something strange about the criminal having been let out of prison, and you claim that he was convicted of two prior murders. He was involved in a crime in which someone else murdered two people. Your source does not say that he himself was convicted of murder. He was convicted (of something, but we don't know what), served his time with credit for time served, and was then released.
 * 3) So? We don't even know if these were the final charges. As your ref says, "When ABC7 asked if charges will be upgraded in this case, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office referred us to police, who said they're still investigating."
 * 4) Thay have all been charged (not yet convicted) with first degree murder and armed robbery in this case. They all have histories of offenses as juveniles for which they had variously been in juvenile detention, on supervision, or on probation. One of them was classified as a "violent juvenile offender". What of it? Again, the rules and punishments for juveniles are different.
 * 5) Absolutely incorrect. You source actually shows that the perpetrator was repeatedly jailed, and we simply cannot say that the final murder happened "because the district attorney and judges had refused to lock up a violent serial criminal". If you cannot see the problems with what you wrote I suggest that you should be not be attempting to add such material to Wikipedia. Meters (talk) 07:13, 1 December 2023 (UTC)