Crime spikes 38% in Chicago during Brandon Johnson’s first month in office
Jack Elbaum
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Today marks one month since Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson entered office on May 15, 2023. He commemorated the milestone on Twitter with a thread detailing what he has focused on thus far.
Notably, there was only one mention of public safety — and it did not even reference a specific policy. This is significant because new data show Mayor Johnson has presided over a 38% crime spike over his first month in office when comparing it to the same period last year.
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Vehicle thefts spiked by 153%, aggravated battery is up 17%, burglary jumped by 12%, and even shootings rose 5%. A few weeks ago, carjackings got so bad the Chicago Police Department had to issue a “community alert urging residents to be more vigilant about their surroundings and to always be on the lookout for suspicious activity when entering or leaving vehicles.”
The lone exception to this pattern is murders, which went down by 5%. In raw numbers, it means there were only three fewer people killed.
It is reasonable to look at these numbers within the broader context of Chicago’s long-standing crime problem. It is not as if this crime spike is happening because of Mayor Johnson. It’s not. After all, crime has been rapidly rising for years in Chicago — 56% over the past four years, to be exact. There is no way a new mayor could come in and make everything change overnight.
At the same time, in light of these data, one should seriously question Johnson’s priorities. It seems that a crime spike of this magnitude should warrant a little more attention from a new mayor. However, when one looks through Johnson’s social media, it is apparent his focus lies elsewhere. He tweets about events he attends, podcasts he appears on, and even alleged book bans. But there is very little on public safety or crime. Earlier this month, he responded to a weekend during which 52 people were shot — 10 fatally — with complete silence. He didn’t have a single word to say about it.
It is a scandal that Mayor Johnson has refused to even unveil a plan yet — let alone take tangible action — on the crime wave plaguing the city every day now.
But, to be honest, this is not necessarily surprising. Johnson has supported defunding the police in the past and was distinctly the “progressive” candidate on crime during the mayoral race. Anybody paying attention to Chicago politics over the past year or so could have predicted his lack of real action on this important issue.
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But that is a shame for the city. Economist and philosopher Adam Smith wrote, in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, that “mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.” He is correct, as going soft on criminals does not come without a cost.
It is time for Mayor Johnson to make fighting crime a priority before more of his constituents feel those costs firsthand.
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.