Quote Originally Posted by verminaard View Post
Quote Originally Posted by donkdowndonedied View Post

There are lots of problems. Often this "proactive" stuff just gets poor kids in the system when they very well might have avoided it all their life. Probation and all the fees. Or tickets that people really can't afford. I don't think anyone is well served by that shit.

I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm always interested in seeing the truth even if we don't like it.

Chicago is not that violent of a city BTW. Thats some myth from what I see.. always brought out by the right as some cesspool of liberalism when I don't think the murder rate even cracks the top 20 cities. It isn't a safe place, but it isn't specifically worse than other bad cities. Baltimore, yes.
This is from Wikipedia.

Chicago homicides/year

2010: 436[101]
2011: 435[101]
2012: 516[102]
2013: 441[33]
2014: 432[33] or 416[103]
2015: 468[103]
2016: 762[104]

2016's surge in murders and shootings, coupled with a decline in gun seizures, led former Police Superintendent John Escalante to express concerns in March 2016 that officers might be hesitant to engage in proactive policing due to fear of retribution. Officers anonymously reported to the Chicago Sun-Times that they have been afraid to make investigatory stops because the Justice Department and American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois have been scrutinizing police practices. Data of the supposed pullback was reflected with an 80 percent decrease in the number of street stops that officers made since the beginning of 2016. Dean Angelo has claimed that part of the problem is politicians and groups like the ACLU who don't know much about policing, and yet are "dictating what police officers do".[151][152][153]

-By all accounts murder seems to be an exponentially increasing problem in Chicago, and political scrutiny of the police department seems to be part of the problem. I am sure for cities above a certain population threshold Chicago is extremely high on the murder rate list. If you just do "murder rate" most of the cities are going to be small ones that have randomly had a lot of murders in a given year, so saying Chicago is relatively safe because it isn't in the top 20 for murder rate isn't really being honest. The fact that St. Louis and Baltimore are big cities that are also high in murder rate actually says a lot about how bad the crime situation really is in these cities.
No, there are many cities with higher murder rates than Chicago. For Chicago to be repeatedly brought forth as an example makes me question your data. These are not towns with 1k people in them that had someone die. 2017 hasn't even finished yet, but apparently everyone on the right knows something about the murder rate there. Not sure whats going on with that.

As to why the murder rate jumped up so high in Chicago, I can't say. It will be interesting to see if it happens again. If the numbers you gave are true then it seems likely.

It isn't so much that I don't think cops going hard on suspected criminals doesn't reduce crime. I don't think I've ever argued otherwise. That doesn't make sense. What I believe is that government itself can perform criminal acts on citizens. People get caught up in the criminal justice system and never get out. Lots deserve it, but many don't. This is especially true in these areas where this "proactive policing" is such a big deal. When you're poor, those small things can really hurt you because you can't pay an attorney to get your cases sealed or whatever. Perhaps you can't afford a fine. All these stories are never counted. Infact, anyone who actually interviews people in a news piece like this will be considered a "liberal" media outlet. For SIMPLY interviewing the poor blacks etc that get fucked by this stuff. You *NEVER* see the rightwing rags interview these people or tell their story. It just doesn't sell to the rightwing mindset which needs to constantly be coddled.

Basically, some people, especially Republicans believe that cops are like angels and should be given all the authority they wish. People like myself, who are distrustful of undue power vehemently disagree. Republicans really don't want to acknowledge any of this, but some do.