Violent crime in Chicago was down in summer 2022 compared with 2021 -- did police safety plans help?
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Another holiday weekend is in the books – along with an unofficial wrap to summer.
This Labor Day weekend, 55 people were shot across Chicago — and nine of those people were killed. On Tuesday, CBS 2 Investigator Megan Hickey asked whether this summer's safety plans had an impact.
As Supt. David Brown noted in his remarks Tuesday morning, the data show that violent crimes for the summer months of June, July, and August are down this year compared to last year.
Experts who study crime trends say we should be looking at the homicides in particular — which were also down this summer.
For our purposes, we compared violent crime data for June, July, and August over the last five years. This year's violent crime numbers are on par with the numbers in 2019 — after an uptick in 2020 and 2021.
This Labor Day weekend, in particular, the total number of shootings were down – by four. In 2021, there were 59 shootings, while in 2022 there were 55.
But the shootings this year were more deadly. Nine people were killed this year, compared with five last year.
Back in May, Supt. Brown talked about the Police Department's goals of having officers be more visible in their communities during the summer with foot, bike, and other types of saturation patrols.
"Our presence needs to be really something that is a focus - getting out of the car, getting on foot walking, and engaging people," Brown said Tuesday. "That has been a major focus of ours I think that speaks to perceptions much more than just the declines that we obviously have acknowledged."
Northwestern University's Wesley Skogan, a crime policy and policing expert, said we are "halfway back" to crime levels we saw pre-pandemic. This follows a surge during the height of the pandemic.
"Summer is where you tell the difference between this year and next year and last year," Skogan said. "We still have got to make progress, but I will say some things are looking very positive."
But Skogan said the positive change this year does not nearly amount to a "total correction" back to lower pre-pandemic crime levels.
Dr. Arthur Lurigio, a professor of criminal justice and psychology at Loyola University Chicago, said he is also pleased with the drop in homicides this summer.
There were 205 homicides recorded in June, July, and August of this year compared to 277 during the same period last year.
"It is notable it that homicides have gone down," he said. "It's refreshing to see that."
But Lurigio said it really takes looking at the neighborhood level to determine the true impact on residents and their sense of safety.
Both experts said they would give CPD differing grades for their effort at reducing crime, versus their actual results.
"For effort, they get higher than a C. For the fruit that they produce from those efforts, I would say it's average," Lurigio said. "It's not below average. It's not particularly above average."
"Given them the constraints there have been, I'll give them a B - not terrible," added Skogan.
When looking at the bigger picture, Skogan also said its important to note a decline in mass shootings this year - as well as a recent decline in carjackings.
