Author’s note: This was initially written before the Texas National Guard was sent up here. I would also like to add that sending the Texas National Guard up here during hurricane season after the federal government has gutted natural disaster relief directly puts the people of Texas in danger, as the National Guard is one of the groups which help during natural disasters.
In the September 25 issue of TechNews, a letter to the editor proclaimed that the National Guard should be sent to Chicago. The author repeated a bunch of talking points with no evidence about how awful crime is in Chicago. As a lover of statistics and science, as well as someone who loves Chicago, the lack of evidence for such grandiose claims really rubbed me the wrong way. I am here to provide the numbers about Chicago crime, both analyzing how crime has trended over time in the city, as well as how Chicago stacks up to other places in the US. All sources will be provided so you can refer to them yourself.
And while I will be using data to substantiate my claims, I do want to start with anecdotes. Firstly, I am a resident of the South Side. Yes, at least a mile south of the Illinois Tech campus. I ride the bus and train in that neighborhood frequently, including at night. My family and I are close with our Neighbors, and we love where we live. In my experience, a lot of the fear of “safe neighborhood” comes from people who don’t really know anything about those neighborhood, and is often racially motivated (refer to Quillian & Pager, 2001). Not to mention, with the known violence of the police and government against Black, brown, and immigrant populations, the deployment of the National Guard would lead to increased fears and threats among those communities, as we have already seen with the deployment of ICE.
Moving on to the statistics and data, I will be looking at crime rates, not flat numbers, as that does not make sense when comparing populations of different sizes. First, Chicago is not even in the top 20 of major cities when it comes to murder rates. Here, “major city” is defined as a city with 100,000 people or more. Refer to this Newsweek article for the list of cities with higher murder rates. When it comes to violent crime, based on the FBI’s data, Chicago ranks 92nd, and Memphis, TN, is at the top. When it comes to property crime, Chicago ranks 41, and Oakland, CA, is at the top. You can view the data on Wikipedia, as it is formatted in a more digestible way, and you can sort as you wish. The data is also on the FBI website, but I found it quite difficult to navigate.
When it comes to comparing Chicago now to how it was in the past, crime is generally down. The only exception here is theft, but violent crime is down, and down by pretty significant percentages. For example, according to the Chicago Police Department (CPD), murder rates have dropped by 32 percent from 2024 and 48 percent from 2021. CPD, the City of Chicago, as well as numerous news outlets, such as Block Club and Fox, have also reported the marked drop in violent crime more broadly. In fact, according to The Trace, a group which monitors gun violence, Chicago is on track to have its lowest number of fatal shootings in over ten years. This is further corroborated by the Global Statistics, which reports crime statistics.
Further, Block Club notes the disproportionate impact of gun violence on Black men, who made up about 71 percent of murder victims in 2024. Black neighborhoods in Chicago were stripped of many resources, such as housing and schools, which, in part, increased in crime decades ago. Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago, as well as Mayor Brandon Scott of Baltimore, and other Black mayors have had real success in reducing crime in their cities in recent years by shifting toward a public health lens when looking at crime. However, it seems the federal government is dead-set on ignoring their progress and efforts. As reported by AP and Politico, Black mayors are not receiving credit for the reductions in crime, and many fear the potential danger of deploying a militarized force into the cities.
As we have already seen with “Operation Midway Blitz” and the deployment of ICE around the nation, people are afraid, especially with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, which allows ICE to profile people based on their appearance and language, as reported by Politico and USA Today. ICE has been responsible for shutting down schools, harassing people in hospitals and potentially risking patients’ lives, and has physically harmed people, immigrant and US-born citizens alike.
The culture of fear that has resulted among the people of this nation because of ICE raids and the continued threats of National Guard deployment is horrifying. The current administration is also participating in actions that are hauntingly familiar to historians and individuals who have lived through fascist regimes. It is to the point that people in and out of the US are noting the parallels between the current administration and how the Nazi party rose to power in 1930s Germany. Silencing dissent, labeling “undesirable” groups as violent, placing humans in concentration camps, disappearing people off the street, and even the narratives used by the administration are all textbook moves of fascist regimes. Even historians who do not agree with the comparison admit that the current administration is attempting to make the US an authoritarian nation, albeit at a slower pace than past leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler.
In conclusion, the narrative that Chicago is such a dangerous place to live is, itself, a dangerous narrative not backed by facts and data. Instead of militarization, might it not be better to continue the community and health-based efforts that have been working? Besides, there have been years upon years of research which show that investing in communities, not necessarily the police, can lead to decreased crime and more content residents. For some overviews on community and psychosocial interventions to prevent crime, refer to Mellgren et al. (2024), Lanni (2022), and Nubani et al. (2023).