While homicides are down almost 19% nationwide this year compared to 2025’s already historic lows, murders are on the rise in Chicago. According to the Crime Index, homicides are 9.1% higher in the Windy City than they were at this point last year. The city saw its worst day of violence since 2024 last Friday, and shootings in Chicago doubled last weekend compared to the same weekend in 2025.
Chicago Democrats are now calling for a dedicated Office of Gun Violence Prevention at City Hall as a response to the increase in homicides, but as WGN’s Ben Bradley opines, the city already has a host of “alphabet agencies” tasked with making the streets safer.
CPD, that’s the Chicago Police Department, the CCPSA, the “Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability,” and then there’s MOCS, the Mayor’s Office for Community Public Safety.
Why do we need another city agency?
“What this does is create a stabilized department long term that is not just responding to the whims of today as we battle with sustained issues that we’ve been experiencing for decades,” Chicago Deputy Mayor Emmanuel Andre said.
And why can’t the CCPSA or the MOCS (not to mention the Chicago PD) battle those “sustained issues”?
More importantly, what are Chicago leaders doing to undo some of the issues that Democrats in Springfield have created over the past few years, including the state’s Safe-T Act, which killed off the state’s cash bail system and replaced it with a scheme that allows many defendants to walk free after an arrest without posting any bond at all, no matter how lengthy their criminal history might be.
Some Cook County judges are even reluctant to place defendants on electronic monitoring, and perhaps for good reason. The website CWB Chicago reported last month than almost 10% of those who are supposedly being monitored have gone missing, and the Chicago Tribune has a lengthy feature out today documenting some of the criticisms of the program from both the left and the right. Some criminal justice reformers say too many people are being placed on electronic monitoring, while conservative critics say the scheme is allowing violent predators to roam free.
On April 25, Alphanso Talley allegedly robbed a dollar store, then was taken to a hospital after he told police, upon his arrest, he swallowed some drugs.
There, according to police and prosecutors, he shot and killed Chicago police Officer John Bartholomew and injured another officer.
Talley had been on electronic monitoring, but his device had shut off about seven weeks before the shooting. A Cook County judge had issued a warrant, but it was more than 48 hours after the alleged violation, in contravention to a new policy called for by Chief Judge Charles Beach, which says that “major violations” will be sent to be heard by a judge within 24 hours on both weekdays and weekends.
It is incidents like these that cause officials to probe how systems like electronic monitoring are working, though the public response at times has caused frustration for those who advocated for the Pretrial Fairness Act and other measures of reform.
They say the tragedies are often politicized, ignoring data that indicate most people released while awaiting trial comply with conditions and don’t commit new crimes.
Electronic monitoring may be suitable for some defendants, but the criticism is that individuals who’ve demonstrated they’re a danger to the community are often getting released instead of held without bond. I think it’s also ridiculous that the criminal justice system treats those on electronic monitoring the same as those held behind bars awaiting trial when it comes to factoring in pre-trial detention into sentences, so that someone who spends a year with an ankle monitor strapped to them will get a year taken off of their sentence if and when they’re convicted or take a plea deal.
I’m sympathetic to the argument that most people on electronic monitoring don’t go on to commit new crimes, but honestly, when has the left cared about what “most people” do? Most Illinois residents aren’t committing violent crimes with AR-15s or “large capacity” magazines, but the same Democrats responsible for the SAFE-T Act have also made it illegal for anyone to possess any of those commonly-owned arms.
Illinois and Chicago have some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, and for decades Chicago has had some of the worst violence in the country. Now murders are on the rise yet again, in stark contrast to what’s happening in most jurisdictions around the country. Democrats are desperate to find a gun control solution to the Windy City’s woes, but those laws just punish the law-abiding. What the city and state really need to do is repeal their feel-good criminal justice “reforms”; hold repeat, violent offenders in jail until trial whenever possible; ensure that violent offenders are facing consequences for their actions instead of getting sweetheart plea deals that quickly return them to the streets; and allow Illinois residents access to the same self-defense tools that are available in most other states.
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