Chambana Sun

Sen. Dan Ugaste (R-St. Charles) is responding to a report that Chicago's arrest rate for what's categorized as major crimes has sunk to 5% in 2022.

“It tells me that they’re still significantly understaffed in the police department and current policy is not helping them catch, detain and arrest suspects,” he said. “Not a good direction and hopefully in the race for mayor the people will find someone to lead them to improve the situation. No one feels safe in the city right now.”

The major crimes category includes murder, sexual assault, aggravated battery and carjacking. The rate is significantly down from the 10% arrest rate recorded in 2019.

“It tells me that they’re still significantly understaffed in the police department and current policies are not helping them catch, detain and arrest suspects,” Ugaste said.

Arrest rates varied by the type of “major crime,” based on the seven categories that cities have long reported to the federal government, with Chicago’s homicide arrest rate down 5% to 29% in 2022 and some 13% lower than the 41% rate in 2020.

“I would support wholesale changes,” Ugaste said. “I think we need a system where officers feel supported instead of under attack.”

The highest arrest rate within thefts in 2022 was 16%, with nearly 9,000 retail theft arrests, meaning more than four of five retail thieves in Chicago escape justice. The nearly 20,000 thefts “over $500” resulted in arrests just 1% of the time and the nearly 19,000 thefts “$500 and under” led to arrests in just 1.6% of cases. For the almost 5,000 “thefts from a building” the arrest rate was 0.5%.