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Chicago Justice

Chicago politicians like to blame guns for their city’s horrendous violent crime problem. But Texas has a whole lot more guns and far less murder and mayhem. Elected officials in America’s former Second City also like to blame something called “gun violence”, but that’s just political-speak for gangs shooting it out over territory.

Criminals there aren’t deterred by the threat of arrest or jail time because frankly, cops seldom solve cases – even homicides. Chicago’s finest have identified suspects in a scant 6% (now 7.5%) of criminal homicides in Chicago this year.

Even when police do solve a violent crime and make an arrest – and prosecutors manage to get a conviction – prison sentences mean little. Gentle readers should think of Prairie State prison sentences as working like dog-years, but in reverse.

Meet Keith Perkins. This out-of-control monster was arrested in September 2015 after a particularly heinous evening. On his way to a nicer neighborhood, he robbed a pair of riders on a Blue Line train.

They say a gun is like a magic wand in that it makes people do what you command of them. Mr. Perkins indicated he had a gun and his victims surrendered their stuff. Funny how that works. Later that night, during another hold-up, he busted a man’s eardrum. Then he robbed another and fractured that man’s kneecap.

Police actually arrested him and prosecutors convicted him a couple of weeks ago. The judge sentenced Mr. Perkins to 16.5 years for his little spree, and the bailiff hauled him off.  But under so-called “truth in sentencing” system, using my public school math skills, that means Mr. Perkins shouldn’t breathe free air again until (2017 + 16.5 =) 2033 or so.

But wait. Perkins was sentenced in Illinois. His cheduled parole release date: June 15, 2018.

NBC’s new drama “Chicago Justice” purports to show tough prosecutors “fearlessly” pursuing justice, acting as advocates for the victims of crime. Given the real-world dysfunctional criminal justice system that operates in Chicago, the fictional series couldn’t be further from reality.

Even adding in any time served while in county jail – assuming he wasn’t released on electronic home monitoring – Mr. Perkins still will serve far less than one fifth of that 16.5 year sentence. That’s pretty close to dog-years in reverse.

While Chicagoland politicians cannot seem to fathom why violence and mayhem rules the streets of Chicago, those of us with IQs over room temperature can see at least one big reason the threat of prison time isn’t a deterrent in Illinois.

Speaking of magic wands…if strict gun control and low levels of lawful gun ownership reduced violent crime, Chicago would be one of the safest cities in America. Instead, as of March 22, police report 656 people shot and 127 homicides this year.

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37 COMMENTS

  1. All those Chicago NBC shows are complete and utter BS. As is Chicago’s justice system which today charged a cop with a count per boo-lit for shooting LaQuan McDonald,even though the punk was brandishing a knife,puncturing tires and breaking car lights. A regular crime wave…it will never change. Avoid the city if at all possible.

    • Watch the video of the shooting–with sound. It will change your mind. The police officer was on the far side of a car, and was one of a bunch of other officers (my memory says eight, but that’s a guess), not one of whom fired his weapon. Further, as the sound track (which was published long after the tape was released) demonstrates, the officer shot LaQuan, who collapses in the street. Then the officer fires five more shots. That my friend is an execution. And it didn’t help matters that the other officers who were present deleted their videos (chalk it up to “equipment malfunction”–uh huh), and then tried to create a story that exonerated the officer. Except for one thing–the car video did not confirm but in fact contradicted the police officers’ story line. That is called a “cover up.” It was a bad shoot, and this cop will likely be convicted.

      • Oh hell no! Grossly overcharged. I’ve seen the video many times. They’re charging him with 1st degree murder. It CAN’T be 1st degree in the commission of felonies. Spin your BS to someone who hasn’t lived in Chicago?

        • Bullshit. If you or I shot somebody in the exact same situation, we’d be facing life without parole, possibly execution depending on what state we were in. Why the fvck should cops get special treatment?

        • Personally I believe it was manslaughter based on the video, and a bad shoot. That said he’ll never get a fair trial because the powers that be with held the video and in turn ruined any chances he had. It wasn’t a coverup for him or even Gary, it was a cover up for Rahm and Anita to win what was a close and competitive election.

  2. Texas also has some ten times the population.

    So… what are the actual figures — is Texas better in absolute terms, or just per capita?

    • Dunno, but it seems to me I read a lot about violent crime in Dallas and Houston, and Texas appears to execute more people convicted of murder any other state. Maybe it is all those refugees from down by the Ninth Ward in Noo Awlins after the great Katrina flood or something….

    • Comparing entire states is useless. Too many variables.

      The big cities is where the thugs are. Compare Chicago to Houston. Similar size, similar median income. Houston has a fraction of Chicago’s crime.

  3. You’re comparing a city to a state. That’s a false equivalency. If you compare state to state, Texas actually has a higher gun death rate than Illinois.

    • I could care less about the gun death rate. I want to know how many gun deaths were bad guys versus good guys.

      • The gun HOMICIDE rate (not including suicides) is higher in Texas than it is in Illinois. I know you don’t want to hear it but it’s a fact. Also the gun homicide rate for cities is highest in New Orleans not Chicago. Of course Chicago has higher flat numbers because Chicago has 8 times as many people as New Orleans. The rate (per 100,000 people) is the telling statistic.

        • Citation, please, I think your “fact” is made up. Chicago does not have 8 times the population of Austin, which runs 20-50 homicides a year.

        • U.S. Census Bureau as of July 1, 2015

          New Orleans 389,617
          Chicago 2,720,546

          Ok, so it’s 7 times bigger not 8. So crucify me, Chicago is still way bigger in population.

    • “Gun death rate? ” What kind of nonsense is that? We’re not talking about the preferred means of suicide here, which is what accounts for two-thirds of typical “gun death rates”, putting suicide by firearm on par with murder but giving murder and suicide by other means a pass. No, the homicide rate is what we’re looking at, here. What’s your chance of being violently killed, not how popular a particular instrumentality is among people who choose to off themselves.

      • The gun HOMICIDE rate (not including suicides) is higher in Texas that it is in Illinois. I know you don’t want it to be, but it is. It’s a fact.

        • FBI Statistics Gun Murders ( Rates per 100,000 inhabitants)

          Illinois 2.8

          Texas 3.2

          Would you like the entire list of all 50 states ?

        • According to the most recent, complete (2015) FBI data:

          2015 IL firearms murders: 440 (3.415 per 100,000 inhabitants)

          2015 TX firearms murders: 906 (3.298 per 100,000 inhabitants)

          IL’s non-negligent homicide rate: 5.8 per 100,000 inhabitants (690 in Metropolitan Statistical Area)

          TX’s non-negligent homicide rate: 4.8 per 100,000 inhabitants (1,207 in Metropolitan statistical area)

          You really have to look at multiple data points to get an accurate picture. And the data doesn’t lie: Increased gun restrictions do not reduce violent crime or firearms homicides. In fact, the data for many of the highest-crime areas (like CA and D.C.) suggest the exact opposite.

          Source: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015

        • You are correct. There is no substantial link of causality FOR OR AGAINST firearms availability effecting firearms homicides. BOTH sides keep trying to pop up statistics or cities like Chicago to “prove” their points. Those examples are just for show. When you really look at the statistics there is nothing there to support EITHER side. So I wish both sides including this web site would just stop it. It’s false and misleading when any article does it on either side of the argument. Including this one.

  4. The police and corrupt bureaucrats in Chicago don’t want to fix the problem because once the problem is fixed, they can’t keep saying every election year that they’ll “make things better” or whatever other slogan they can think of.

    Besides food riots and civil unrest and general anarchy, Chicago will never be fixed locally. I think the only solution is for President Trump to send the FBI in to investigate the city from top to bottom. Problem is the FBI has been politicized thanks to the Marxist People’s Revolution of Hope and Change.

    • Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!!! We have a winner!

      The ruling class in Chicago has no desire to fix anything. The current state of chaos does not affect them and it is job security.

      (The chaos in Chicago does not affect the ruling class because they live in nice neighborhoods and their children attend nice schools.)

  5. I don’t watch any of the Chicago themed television dramas. I prefer something more believable, like “The Walking Dead” or “The Expanse”

  6. “truth in sentencing” ss it applies in Illinois is a real play on words. Whether it’s this turd or the many others like him the Chicago criminal justice system which by default is the Illinois Department of Corrections is overwhelmed with “customers”. There’s litterally “no room in the Inn”, so one goes in another comes out early. That coupled with various problems of the CPD makes for an endless cycle of the ‘crime machine’,

    Northern Illinois politicians won’t do what’s needed that’s a given, will anyone else? I guess we’ll have to see.

  7. He’ll keep going at this till he’s dead or murders someone and they have to deal with him. Just another one o those “non violent” offenders we keep hearing about. Give me a break, people want to talk about reform based prisons how about keeping people in until A)They actually lose the will to do stupid shit like this and B)separate them from society for an extended period of time to reduce the damage they do to it.

    He knows he’s a wolf in a land of sheep and the people he targets are easy prey.

  8. Thank goodness that public transportation is a “Gun Free” Criminal Protection Zone in Killinois! Otherwise some CCW holder could have stopped that night of “mayhem” right there. Permanently.

  9. You all would be surprised. There are actually HUGE numbers of Chicagoans, people who actually live in the City of Chicago (not the suburbs), who are advocating for much harsher punishments for criminals, who really want to mop the city of the scum. The challenge is that they are up against the power of the Social Justice Warriors, who think that sending people to jail as punishment for committing crimes (oh the horror) only makes people into more hardened criminals that will never have another opportunity to live a productive honest life because of their prison experience and criminal record.

    For example, we could send people to jail for 7 years for unlawful gun possession (which usually means that the person is a felon that’s not supposed to have a gun, that was caught with one), but the SJWs cry cruel and unusual punishment: “He didn’t even do anything, he just felt too vulnerable without a gun, he’d rather go to jail for illegal gun possession than be caught by his enemy without a gun on the street”.

    Yes, I agree that these people are delusional, that is absolutely something that people should think about before getting involved in thug life, and people need to be punished for committing crimes as that’s how society functions. But don’t write off all of Chicago because of what you read in the media about our politics. The reality is that the Chicago population is 32.9% black, and that heavily colors the political discourse. What percent black is the Texas population? 11.9%. Exactly. You don’t have to deal with those sensitivities, and be fair to us: we have them because the South kicked them out more or less and Northerners were too compassionate to turn them away, otherwise why wouldn’t they all still live in the South where they were originally imported and where the weather is 10x nicer.

    If we could poll just the non-black residents of Chicago, I think you would be very surprised by their political leanings.

    • “otherwise why wouldn’t they all still live in the South where they were originally imported and where the weather is 10x nicer.”

      Because northern left wingers offered them lotsa free stuff to come, stay, vote Dem. The South said, “don’t let the door hitcha”, and the rest is history. Enjoy!

      • Wow — serious revisionist history.

        Blacks moved to Chicago in large numbers before the U.S. had anything much resembling “the left”. What drew them to Chicago was that great American job machine, industry.

  10. so long illinois not repeal this “no gun zones” for lawfull carry

    (8) Any bus, train, or form of transportation paid for in whole or in part with public funds, and any building, real property, and parking area under the control of a public transportation facility paid for in whole or in part with public funds.

    (10) Any public gathering or special event conducted on property open to the public that requires the issuance of a permit from the unit of local government, provided this prohibition shall not apply to a licensee who must walk through a public gathering in order to access his or her residence, place of business, or vehicle.

    (12) Any public playground.

    (13) Any public park, athletic area, or athletic facility under the control of a municipality or park district, provided nothing in this Section shall prohibit a licensee from carrying a concealed firearm while on a trail or bikeway if only a portion of the trail or bikeway includes a public park.

    (14) Any real property under the control of the Cook County Forest Preserve District.

    (18) Any building, real property, or parking area under the control of a public library.

    (20) Any building, real property, or parking area under the control of an amusement park.

    (21) Any building, real property, or parking area under the control of a zoo or museum.

    (5) Any building or portion of a building under the control of a unit of local government. in point of road rest site area

    so long nothing can called “carrying” there

  11. Here’s another way Illinois sentencing laws are all fucked up:

    1. Guy is convicted of felony theft and is sentenced to 4 years in prison (suspended) and probation.

    2. While on probation, guy drives drunk and stoned and kills 2 people. Charged with 2 counts of aggravated DUI causing death. Probation violation, so off to prison he goes for the previous theft.

    3. 4 year sentence becomes 2 (1 day off for each day of good behavior), now he’s remanded back to the county jail where he was charged with the DUI deaths.

    4. Guy is ultimately convicted and sentenced to 20 years with an 85% serve rule (truth in sentencing due to prior felony conviction), so in effect, he has to serve 17 years. But the kicker is that the 2 years he ended up serving for the prior theft count toward the time he has to serve for the DUI deaths. The state’s logic is that he wouldn’t have served that time if he hadn’t committed the new crime… so the time counts toward both crimes.

    Logic fail.

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