CHICAGO (CBS) – Chicago’s police superintendent says the city is re-tooling its anti-gang strategy, following a particularly violent weekend during which several people, including a 6-year-old girl, were killed...The plan, as detailed in the remainder of that article, is to increase police presence in the areas where a murder has already taken place in an attempt to stop retaliatory murders. It makes sense from a Stratego! point of view - the world as viewed as a board game - but it leaves hanging the question of just what will these folks be doing if they're not out shooting each other. Murder is the top of the heap in crime, but you don't get there in one jump from shoplifting. Lots of murders are indicative of systemic rot. So what's the plan to make it a functioning, productive community? More funding for education? More community centers? Teach-ins for peace? More of the same, same, same that has failed, failed, failed?
“We’re going to get our head around this thing and we’re going to turn it around is what it boils down to,” McCarthy told reporters on Monday. “If we were sitting here saying we don’t know what’s going on, we don’t know what to do, that would be a different situation. We know what’s going on. We’re putting pieces in place to make sure we can stem this tide.”
So far this year, there have been 94 murders in Chicago. There were 66 in the same period last year. There have been 408 shootings so far this year, compared to 296 in the same period in 2011.
What model of the community is at work here if your plan is to simply stop the counterpunches and throw entitlements at them to keep them alive? What's the implied definition of success? As far as I can tell, it's to allow those neighborhoods to go feral and limit the most egregious of crimes to an acceptable level. It's the Michael Vick model of humanity. It's perfectly OK for them to be treated like fighting dogs so long as you don't let it go too far.
Managing the mayhem means job security for law enforcement. I know that's an entirely cynical statement, but it's true. We lived in a very lawless neighborhood for a few months. All the police did was to encourage us to move, if we could.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant. You're right, only a full house cleaning, starting with eliminating the climate of lawlessness will solve this problem.
ReplyDeleteIvyan, abandoning these neighborhoods and the people in them is the de facto plan at work.
ReplyDeleteB-Daddy, thanks for the compliment. The housecleaning is going to have to come from the residents themselves. An early step in the process will have to be the de-legitimization of the self-destructive behaviors that lead to the rot through a change in popular culture.
ReplyDeleteI think there is causation as to the murder rate and the President's absence from Chicago.
ReplyDeleteThey need him back. We should oblige.