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There is certainly room for good faith discussions about criminal justice reform, including bail reform. But these reforms must be tempered by reality, especially where violence is involved, and the overall safety of the public is at stake.
Far too many rogue prosecutors and other local officials, including
Kim Foxx, the state’s attorney for Cook County, have implemented poorly designed bail reforms and lenient prosecutorial tactics. The
devastating results of these practices pre-date the 2020 homicide spike, but the problem has certainly been exacerbated during the last two years.
This is not speculation. This is hard data. Defenders of Cook County’s 2017 bail reform measures only succeed if they are permitted to fudge the numbers and mischaracterize reality. A comprehensive February 2020
study took a harder look at the actual numbers and found that, after the new bail policies were implemented, 33% more released defendants were charged with committing new violent crimes.
As of Dec. 10, at
least 56 defendants released on felony bail in Chicago have been accused of killing or trying to kill someone, with 83 additional victims involved in their violent crimes. Moreover, violent crime clearance rates in Chicago and other cities are
abysmally low. We have very little idea who, specifically, is committing most violent crimes, and it’s statistically almost certain that we dramatically undercount the rates at which many violent offenders released on felony bail continue to re-offend.
This
problem is not unique to Chicago. Rogue prosecutors from
Philadelphia to
Los Angeles are forcing communities to reap the consequences of their progressive and overly lenient policies.
Nothing could capture the breadth of this problem better than one recent and illustrative example of how rogue prosecutors embolden criminals and facilitate violence.
In broad daylight on a Friday morning in early October, during an intra-gang dispute, four people drove up to a house in a residential Chicago neighborhood and
indiscriminately opened fire on it. Individuals inside the house shot back. In total, at least 70 rounds were fired, one man was killed, and two more were injured. The entire shootout was apparently caught on video.
Law enforcement officers very quickly arrested five suspects, for whom they sought murder and aggravated battery charges. Several felony gun charges were also likely warranted.
And yet, by Monday, all five suspects had been released without charges, and without any subsequent attempt to charge them. According to police reports, the state attorney’s office cited “mutual combat” as the reason for declining prosecution. Let me assure you, that’s not how the defense of mutual combat works.
It is truly astounding that rogue Chicago prosecutors have reached a point where they will release suspects who fired dozens of rounds into a residential neighborhood during an unprecedented spike in homicide and, with a straight face, tell the community, “It’s fine, they only shot at each other.” Which at the same time tells those who perpetrate violent gun crimes, “It’s fine, as long as you shoot at each other.”
And then we wonder aloud to ourselves in congressional hearings why Chicago suffers from a gun violence problem.
