Last year, 294,974 major crimes were committed in Chicago, an increase of 6 percent over the previous year.
That works out to nearly 1 major crime for every 10 people. Or, put another way, the average city resident had a 1 in 10 chance last year of being a crime victim.
It`s a reality that Chicagoans well recognize, but not one that has been in the forefront of discussion during the current mayoral campaign.
Nearly a third of the people surveyed in a Tribune poll in mid-January said that crime was the most important issue facing the city. The only issue mentioned more often was education, which was cited by 37 percent of the respondents.
Asked to name the two most important issues, 63 percent of the survey participants included crime. No other concern was mentioned as frequently. Even education-the seemingly constant subject of headlines and rhetoric for most of the last 18 months-got only a 57 percent response.
Yet, exposure of the issue during the campaign leading up to the Feb. 28 Democratic primary appears to have taken a back seat to a focus on questions dealing with subjects like a controversial O`Hare Airport hotel lease, television commercials and boasts over who has the best leadership abilities. During Tuesday`s televised debate, none of the candidates participating-Mayor Eugene Sawyer, State`s Atty. Richard M. Daley and Ald. Lawrence Bloom
(5th)-even mentioned crime aside from a passing reference or two while answering a question about another issue.
On the other hand, none of the some 20 questions put to the candidates by the panel of media representatives at the debate was directly about crime.
Still, the issue hasn`t been ignored completely during the campaign.
Sawyer has asserted that in his 14 months as mayor he has ”developed a comprehensive approach to address the issue of drugs and drug-related crime.” The man behind that effort has been Police Supt. LeRoy Martin who, when he took command of the department shortly before the death of Mayor Harold Washington in late 1987, pledged to reduce gang-related murders and described his officers as ”the toughest gang in town.”
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The total number of murders reported in Chicago dropped to 658 in 1988, the lowest in 20 years, while the number of arrests and gun seizures increased. However, gang-related slayings were up 28 percent last year, and there were at least 60 drug-related killings, another steadily rising statistic.
Bloom has argued in a detailed position paper that as many as 900 sworn officers could be freed for street work if the paper-shuffling jobs that they now do were given to lower-paid civilians. In addition, he has said the department should hire another 500 officers to bring it up to its budgeted strength of 12,500 police.
All those new civilian employees and all those new officers would cost more money, however, and Bloom hasn`t indicated where it would come from. Nor has he explained how he would deal with contract constraints that have prevented ”civilianization” programs from moving ahead under the current administration.
Besides, crime-fighting isn`t simply a matter of numbers. In fact, there is a recognition within the Police Department that something more than muscle is needed to fight gangs and gang-related crime.
It is not uncommon to hear veteran police officers acknowledge that they stand little chance of winning the war against street gangs when teenage gang members can make far more money in dealing drugs and other illegal activities than they could earn at a minimum-wage job.
The solution, they insist, must include economic and educational components to help channel potential gang members in a positive direction, components that must be furnished by other local, state and federal governmental agencies.
Martin has decried the policy of releasing many of those accused of less violent crimes on no-cash signature bonds from the Cook County Jail because of the controversy over jail overcrowding that is being dealt with by a federal judge.
That, in itself, reveals how things beyond their control limit the extent that a mayor or his police superintendent can deal with crime problems.
Daley designated a week of his campaign to travel around the city talking at schools and other places about his plans to battle gangs and drugs, which he sees as the root of most street crime. He has vowed to improve coordination between the Police Department`s narcotics and gang units, and to modernize the department.
Ald. Timothy Evans (4th), who is sitting out the primary to run as a third-party candidate in the April 4 general election, proposes the establishment of a Cabinet-level officer-”a drug czar”-to coordinate drug education and interdiction programs in the city.
Beyond such narrowly focused proposals is the question of how the Police Department will function in the future. How should officers be deployed? Are there better ways to fight crime than the traditional methods?
Before his death, Washington talked about a top-to-bottom re-evaluation of the department, according to one of his top aides, but the only move in that direction during the Sawyer administration has been the establishment of a blue-ribbon committee to study the 911 emergency phone system.
For Daley, modernization is a question of high-tech.
He has criticized the department in campaign speeches for maintaining archaic record-keeping procedures that date from ”the age of the
Untouchables,” and also called for ”a professional crime lab.” But, like Bloom, he didn`t talk about the cost of improvements, and police officials contend some modernization programs are already underway.
Neither Daley nor the other candidates have talked about the essentially conservative nature of Chicago`s Police Department, and its traditional reluctance to adopt new ideas.
It`s also hard to determine the extent of how the adoption of some of these new ideas, such as the creation of a faster, more advanced information system, would visibly affect the quality of life in the neighborhoods and on the streets.
Around the nation, there has been a growing belief that the only way to do that is to get community residents involved in crime-fighting.
”Researchers have learned that police on their own cannot make communities safe,” writes Wesley G. Skogan, the new director of the law and social science program at Northwestern University, in ”The State of the Region: Background Papers,” soon to be published by the Regional Partnership, a consortium of civic groups.
”A great deal of fear is generated by social conditions and outright physical decay over which police have little control. The best new
contribution of the police may be to help mobilize the creativity and energy of individuals and organizations active in their neighborhoods.”
Proposals for neighborhood-oriented policing, which would require a more active police-community relationship, have gained momentum in other cities but have been given little but lip service from most of the local mayoral candidates.
Bloom has been an exception, discussing in detail the need for an overhaul of the beat representative program as part of a move to create a stronger working relationship between the police and the city`s communities.