Dupage Policy Journal

State Rep. Amy Grant called Chicago’s single-digit arrest rate for major crimes a “travesty” and called on the city to change direction.

“I think it’s a travesty,” Grant (R-Wheaton) told the DuPage Policy Journal. “We need to be doing things differently, giving people more economic opportunities so they're not looking at the path of crime as an option.”

Wirepoints recently published the arrest rates for the seven “major crimes” categories the federal government collects data on. Federal reporting guidelines break major crimes into: homicide, criminal sexual assault, robbery, aggravated battery, burglary, theft, and theft of motor vehicles.

“Data for 2022 reveal that arrests were made for only 5% of offenses in Chicago’s major crime categories,” Wirepoints said in its report. “That compares to 10% in 2019.” 

Arrest rates varied by crime. The city's best categorical arrest rate was for homicide, with police arresting suspects in 28% of the cases. That percentage rate is down from making arrests in 41% of such cases in 2020, and a 33% arrest rate in 2021.

Aggravated battery came in second, with arrests being made in 16% of cases. That indicates that more than four out of five criminal attacks go unpunished. 

The rates for the other five major crime categories were no higher than 5%.

It’s a problem for which there is no easy answer.

“We need to be doing more to hold more of these repeat offenders accountable,” Grant said, referring to another angle the city could focus on. “Right now it’s too tempting for them to keep going back to a life of crime. We need to be giving people more opportunities.”

Her Republican colleagues have cited such things as increasing the number of police officers, something Orchard Park Trustee Jim Dodge suggested, and State Sen. Win Stoller (R-Peoria) saying the city’s leaders need to ditch their “soft-on-crime” policies.