Yes, though I’d argue that CPD’s overall murder clearance rate is so abysmal it’s hard to distinguish between trans women and other victims. We had more than 100 people shot over the July 4 weekend this year, about 20 died. Including a couple of children. Not a single arrest has been made. It’s like they’re only interested in traffic stops and policing peaceful protesters.
I did check on their overall clearance rate. for calendar 2023 the rate was 51.7% -- statistically in line with the nation as a whole.
Now there may be other murders that they are less likely to solve, but that would mean that they are doing exceptionally well in certain categories to bring their average solve rate back up to the national mean.
Keep reporting these stories, Crip Dyke, because they need to be told and heard (or read), even if it isn't easy to read about violence against people just wanting to live their lives the way that they want to, and not bothering anybody else. At least it's good to know that journalism isn't completely dead in this country.
I'm a true crime fan (I know, I know...) and was listening to a podcast on the Long Island Serial Killer recently that had an episode on the 2 "male" victims - one was a person of Asian descent found wearing women's clothing who was later confirmed via DNA testing to be biologically male. Suffolk County PD has consistently referred to this person as "Asian Male Doe" and the sketch they made of this victim was clearly male-coded. The podcast host spoke about the real possibility that this person was a trans woman and being consistently misgendered, which would absolutely hamper solving the case because *they're looking for a missing man who didn't exist*. Not the case with these murders in Chicago, but just another example of the police being bigoted shitheads.
This is one of the reasons "defund the police" was a rhetorical dead end for the progressive movement. When the police already don't have the resources and accountability structures in place to provide justice across all populations (and not just to those they deem deserving of prioritization for it), cutting their budget is only going to increase their freedom to be discretionary in how they do their jobs. "We need to increase police budgets and add accountability structures, as well as shifting resources within departments to prioritize detection and evidence collection over fascist street presence meant to control public spaces" doesn't fit on a bumper sticker nearly as well though.
That said, without the piece rebalancing justice resources away from crowd control and into case closure, conviction integrity, and accountability (beyond mere ticket quotas), the centrist democratic position of just throwing more money at the problem didn't work either! Because "back the blue" is just as reductive a motto. Blueshirts don't close murder cases.
Part of "defund the police" was removing entire categories of work from them -- much of it having to do with the homeless. Keeping unhoused folks in jail rather than in shelters is more expensive, and you have the additional expenses of urgent roll-out and transporting the person to the jail when you could just set them up in a home.
Cut the police budget, remove the types of services that are inefficient to provide through cops, then hire other specialists to do those jobs (like social workers for homeless calls), and then you can refocus cops on solving crime because they don't have other things to do.
It's not just rhetoric. It's been done in various places, with data collected. In Europe, at least, it has worked -- Police budgets go way down, overall spending to handle all the problems that police used to hand goes down a bit, AND it prevents crime.
In the US the programs haven't been as comprehensive, but Denver cut overall spending while better addressing homelessness by increasing beds and hiring social workers and then just inviting people rather than beating them to enforce compliance.
Moving the services police should be doing away from the police is an important part of the solution, but we need more money for the government on every single level, including policing. The Reaganite drowning of government in a bathtub has left every single part of the system inefficient, wedded to old and insecure technologies, and generally saddled with oversight mandates it lacks the funding to properly manifest without degrading the relationship between the workers and the people they are supposed to serve. Even in practice areas where this would result in a net negative to specific parts of the policing budgets (like cracking down on overtime abuses), that is money that could be spent on improving clearance rates and reducing caseloads, as well as experimenting with programs like true restorative justice.
Denver's clearance rate is 53%, which if you ask me is still pretty terrible. And yet they're improving it by tackling their clearance rate of more minor crimes (see the MP article linked below, which is fascinating). So I think Denver's success on homelessness (which, for the record, I heartily agree is a good thing) is a red herring to the question of improving murder rate clearance, which is an outcome which won't be be obtained through the reduction of funds.
Populations grow. Wages grow. The money we spend on things grows. If we want justice to be a real thing available for all populations of murdered civilians, we don't get that by buying into GOP and capitalist rhetoric about having people do more with less. We get it by a more nuanced discussion about making sure we spend as much as we need to get the job done by hiring good people to do the right sort of jobs. Which we both agree doesn't include jackboots roughing up the homeless.
Bigger picture, police aren't doing a good job at handling most of the biggest crimes that we are facing as a society. Domestic violence is basically a training ground for future mass shooters and other spree-killing types, and the cops suck at dealing with that. Cybercrime and wage theft are both responsible for bigger pots of money stolen than burglary or robbery, and most of the time a victim goes to the police about either of those and they'll be like "not our problem!" Online harassment—as I am sad to bet you've probably experienced!—has basically no one with the funding and the mandate to handle it effectively... and this is all especially problematic given the major deterrence factors in conduct are not severity of punishment, but the certain and celerity of a response.
There is so much more for police to do than they are currently doing. I am the first to agree that the crowd control fascist displays of force thing—the bodies in blue on the streets of the city—are a goddamn waste of resources and personally made me feel less safe in my neighborhood than anyone else ever did... and that's without getting into the money spent on jails and prisons (which should also be increased because the state of the things is awful, but only if you balance that out with getting people out of jail who shouldn't be in there still, i.e. most of them). But that doesn't mean there aren't places that we should be spending more in service of peace. There are whole categories of crime right now that are running rampant, because the rich people who do them have been allowed to act with impunity, while everyone is distracted by low-occurrence crimes that are easier to gin up moral panics over (like the way our system privileges reacting to stranger sexual assault over college or workplace sexual assaults).
For me these questions have always been entwined. It is the injustice faced by our community which has made me resistant to accepting prison abolition or police abolishment as strategies. I do not think either of those positions result in fewer dead trans women, even as I recognize how popular these ideas have become in the community.
We trans women can only take care of ourselves because cis society has zero interest in us besides being sexual playthings they are ashamed of. It's why I say to all trans women, arm yourself. If a gun for a variety of reasons is a no go, always have a knife with you. ALWAYS
Many PDs and Sheriff's Offices in the West owe their roots to the Confederacy. Most the the Civil War was fought in the South, and many Johnnies came back to a farm that was wrecked. Some stayed and rebuilt, some said "F This" and headed West.
Some found honest work, but many had developed a taste for violence and evil deeds during a cruel war with starvation, disease and hardship. So, who was hiring men with that skill set? The wealthy landowners, railroads, etc. These gangs became the Posse, and eventually Deputies.
The cruelty and racism ingrained in Police Culture can be directly traced back to this.
Curiously, these people never had any problems with 'deadnaming' women, who might after marriage like to be referred to as "Mrs. John Doe", but if Jill Doe decides to be called John Doe all on their own, oh, that gets their dander up a bit, huh?
Well into the 1980s, readers of cooking magazines would often sign their recipies as “Mrs. John Doe.” The insidiouness of that type of deadnaming is that, if the wife dies, the widower’s new wife would have the exact same name, as if she were reproductive or sexual cannon fodder.
Ta, Crip Dyke, and ta, Chicago Sun-Times.
Yes, though I’d argue that CPD’s overall murder clearance rate is so abysmal it’s hard to distinguish between trans women and other victims. We had more than 100 people shot over the July 4 weekend this year, about 20 died. Including a couple of children. Not a single arrest has been made. It’s like they’re only interested in traffic stops and policing peaceful protesters.
I did check on their overall clearance rate. for calendar 2023 the rate was 51.7% -- statistically in line with the nation as a whole.
Now there may be other murders that they are less likely to solve, but that would mean that they are doing exceptionally well in certain categories to bring their average solve rate back up to the national mean.
This is absolutely horrifying.
Keep reporting these stories, Crip Dyke, because they need to be told and heard (or read), even if it isn't easy to read about violence against people just wanting to live their lives the way that they want to, and not bothering anybody else. At least it's good to know that journalism isn't completely dead in this country.
Wouldn't be surprised if they actually solved more than they claimed, but quit when they discovered that the perp was a fellow cop.
I'm a true crime fan (I know, I know...) and was listening to a podcast on the Long Island Serial Killer recently that had an episode on the 2 "male" victims - one was a person of Asian descent found wearing women's clothing who was later confirmed via DNA testing to be biologically male. Suffolk County PD has consistently referred to this person as "Asian Male Doe" and the sketch they made of this victim was clearly male-coded. The podcast host spoke about the real possibility that this person was a trans woman and being consistently misgendered, which would absolutely hamper solving the case because *they're looking for a missing man who didn't exist*. Not the case with these murders in Chicago, but just another example of the police being bigoted shitheads.
This is one of the reasons "defund the police" was a rhetorical dead end for the progressive movement. When the police already don't have the resources and accountability structures in place to provide justice across all populations (and not just to those they deem deserving of prioritization for it), cutting their budget is only going to increase their freedom to be discretionary in how they do their jobs. "We need to increase police budgets and add accountability structures, as well as shifting resources within departments to prioritize detection and evidence collection over fascist street presence meant to control public spaces" doesn't fit on a bumper sticker nearly as well though.
That said, without the piece rebalancing justice resources away from crowd control and into case closure, conviction integrity, and accountability (beyond mere ticket quotas), the centrist democratic position of just throwing more money at the problem didn't work either! Because "back the blue" is just as reductive a motto. Blueshirts don't close murder cases.
We really don't need more money for the police.
Part of "defund the police" was removing entire categories of work from them -- much of it having to do with the homeless. Keeping unhoused folks in jail rather than in shelters is more expensive, and you have the additional expenses of urgent roll-out and transporting the person to the jail when you could just set them up in a home.
Cut the police budget, remove the types of services that are inefficient to provide through cops, then hire other specialists to do those jobs (like social workers for homeless calls), and then you can refocus cops on solving crime because they don't have other things to do.
It's not just rhetoric. It's been done in various places, with data collected. In Europe, at least, it has worked -- Police budgets go way down, overall spending to handle all the problems that police used to hand goes down a bit, AND it prevents crime.
In the US the programs haven't been as comprehensive, but Denver cut overall spending while better addressing homelessness by increasing beds and hiring social workers and then just inviting people rather than beating them to enforce compliance.
Defunding the police works.
Moving the services police should be doing away from the police is an important part of the solution, but we need more money for the government on every single level, including policing. The Reaganite drowning of government in a bathtub has left every single part of the system inefficient, wedded to old and insecure technologies, and generally saddled with oversight mandates it lacks the funding to properly manifest without degrading the relationship between the workers and the people they are supposed to serve. Even in practice areas where this would result in a net negative to specific parts of the policing budgets (like cracking down on overtime abuses), that is money that could be spent on improving clearance rates and reducing caseloads, as well as experimenting with programs like true restorative justice.
Denver's clearance rate is 53%, which if you ask me is still pretty terrible. And yet they're improving it by tackling their clearance rate of more minor crimes (see the MP article linked below, which is fascinating). So I think Denver's success on homelessness (which, for the record, I heartily agree is a good thing) is a red herring to the question of improving murder rate clearance, which is an outcome which won't be be obtained through the reduction of funds.
Populations grow. Wages grow. The money we spend on things grows. If we want justice to be a real thing available for all populations of murdered civilians, we don't get that by buying into GOP and capitalist rhetoric about having people do more with less. We get it by a more nuanced discussion about making sure we spend as much as we need to get the job done by hiring good people to do the right sort of jobs. Which we both agree doesn't include jackboots roughing up the homeless.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/10/30/nonfatal-shootings-police-clearance-rates-denver
Bigger picture, police aren't doing a good job at handling most of the biggest crimes that we are facing as a society. Domestic violence is basically a training ground for future mass shooters and other spree-killing types, and the cops suck at dealing with that. Cybercrime and wage theft are both responsible for bigger pots of money stolen than burglary or robbery, and most of the time a victim goes to the police about either of those and they'll be like "not our problem!" Online harassment—as I am sad to bet you've probably experienced!—has basically no one with the funding and the mandate to handle it effectively... and this is all especially problematic given the major deterrence factors in conduct are not severity of punishment, but the certain and celerity of a response.
There is so much more for police to do than they are currently doing. I am the first to agree that the crowd control fascist displays of force thing—the bodies in blue on the streets of the city—are a goddamn waste of resources and personally made me feel less safe in my neighborhood than anyone else ever did... and that's without getting into the money spent on jails and prisons (which should also be increased because the state of the things is awful, but only if you balance that out with getting people out of jail who shouldn't be in there still, i.e. most of them). But that doesn't mean there aren't places that we should be spending more in service of peace. There are whole categories of crime right now that are running rampant, because the rich people who do them have been allowed to act with impunity, while everyone is distracted by low-occurrence crimes that are easier to gin up moral panics over (like the way our system privileges reacting to stranger sexual assault over college or workplace sexual assaults).
For me these questions have always been entwined. It is the injustice faced by our community which has made me resistant to accepting prison abolition or police abolishment as strategies. I do not think either of those positions result in fewer dead trans women, even as I recognize how popular these ideas have become in the community.
We trans women can only take care of ourselves because cis society has zero interest in us besides being sexual playthings they are ashamed of. It's why I say to all trans women, arm yourself. If a gun for a variety of reasons is a no go, always have a knife with you. ALWAYS
Effing pigs. Buncha flatfoot donut eaters.
Feeling fragile.
Y’all come sit by me?
((squeezes hand)) I got you.
Any flowers around you can gaze at? Music to be played? Here's some Debussy:
https://youtu.be/Y6Bhf5wVeuo?feature=shared
Thank you for the invite. We can sit together.
trans people are only a priority when it's about making their lives a living hell.
Fun fact: Since 2022, the Chicago Sun-Times is a non-profit organization. It's owned by the parent company of WBEZ, our NPR station.
It survived two years of being owned by Rupert Murdoch in the 1980s.
Thanks, as always, CD, for shining light where it needs to be shone.
Many PDs and Sheriff's Offices in the West owe their roots to the Confederacy. Most the the Civil War was fought in the South, and many Johnnies came back to a farm that was wrecked. Some stayed and rebuilt, some said "F This" and headed West.
Some found honest work, but many had developed a taste for violence and evil deeds during a cruel war with starvation, disease and hardship. So, who was hiring men with that skill set? The wealthy landowners, railroads, etc. These gangs became the Posse, and eventually Deputies.
The cruelty and racism ingrained in Police Culture can be directly traced back to this.
And this clickbait item from "The Independent." Sorta on-topic.
"The title of a new ITV sitcom about trainee cops has been condemned by a police body as 'disgusting' and 'highly offensive.'
"'Piglets' is the name of the comedy, set in a police training college."
lolololololol
Curiously, these people never had any problems with 'deadnaming' women, who might after marriage like to be referred to as "Mrs. John Doe", but if Jill Doe decides to be called John Doe all on their own, oh, that gets their dander up a bit, huh?
Well into the 1980s, readers of cooking magazines would often sign their recipies as “Mrs. John Doe.” The insidiouness of that type of deadnaming is that, if the wife dies, the widower’s new wife would have the exact same name, as if she were reproductive or sexual cannon fodder.