CPD Making Fewer Arrests Under Weis

By Margaret Lyons in News on Sep 18, 2008 7:25PM

Chicago police officers are making fewer arrested and taking fewer guns off the street this year, and some say it's because officers are afraid of being investigated—and don't feel supported—by the Jody Weis regime.

Through the end of August, the department made 103,589 arrests (not including arrests for outstanding arrest warrants) compared with 117,971 for the same period last year, according to the department. The 5,600 guns recovered is roughly half as many as police seized in the same period in 2007, internal documents show.

Bookings in the Cook County Jail — where the vast majority of inmates come from Chicago — are down, too. In all but one month this year, the number of people booked into the jail was down from the same month a year earlier, sometimes by hundreds, according to data obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Chicago has had 322 murders through Aug. 21, or 42 more than the number committed through the same date last year. Also, police have received 10,000 more calls from people about shots being fired, and the number of calls about gang disturbances has jumped by nearly 4,000, according to the department documents.

So what's different? Among other things, there's been a drop in "self-initiated" calls, so officers aren't stopping people on the CPD's own volition. According to the president of the Chicago police lieutenants union, "People are doing just what they need to get through [their shifts] and not any extra." [AP, photo by Nick Suydam]