As city celebrates drop in crime, drug offenses soar

By: Rui KaneyaPolice Superintendent Terry G. Hillard led the cheers at a Dec. 27 press conference announcing that Chicago’s crime rate fell for the eighth consecutive year. “It’s been a bad year in Chicago for criminals, and that means it’s getting better for citizens,” he said.

And statistics would seem to bear Hillard out: From 1990 to 1998, crimes were down 19 percent for the eight “index crime” categories compiled by the FBI: murder, criminal sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft and arson.

But overall, the crime picture in Chicago is more complicated—and less positive. Driven by an increase in drug crimes, the city’s non-index crimes rose 17.8 percent, according to an analysis of Chicago Police Department data by The Chicago Reporter.

Non-index crimes—191 categories in all—include kidnappings, weapons violations, prostitution and drug offenses. And preliminary figures for 1999 show there may be a decrease in both index and non-index crimes.

While police credit community policing for much of the decline in index crimes, they also say the program is responsible for the increase in non-index crimes.

The higher numbers do not necessarily indicate more crime but better reporting and police work, police officials say. “With community policing, we get more cooperation from the public,” said Commander Lorenzo Davis of the West Side’s Austin District. “We encourage people to come forward with information. And we are really working together to solve both the index crimes as well as non-index crimes.”

While index crimes have fallen citywide, poor and minority communities bear the brunt of the rising tide of non-index crimes, the Reporter found.

Three minority police districts on the city’s West Side saw the greatest increases in non-index crimes in the 1990s. In the Harrison and Austin districts, non-index crimes rose 76.9 percent and 60.6 percent, respectively. African Americans make up more than 90 percent of their populations, according to a 1998 estimate by the Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium, a research group that studies community policing.

The neighboring Grand Central District, which is 47 percent Latino and 19 percent black, posted a 41.7 percent increase in non-index crimes.

In January, members of the Austin Violence Prevention Consortium, a coalition of community organizations and law-enforcement officials, celebrated the news of Chicago’s declining index crimes at their monthly meeting.

But when the Reporter presented its findings at the group’s April 28 meeting, many members were surprised by the growth of non-index crimes.

“Crime hasn’t disappeared. It’s all about superficial information to keep people feeling safe,” said Tio Hardiman, coordinator at the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention, a citywide public health initiative.

“There’s not much cause for celebration in the Austin community,” added Gennie Randle, Austin communication project organizer at the Westside Health Authority, a community organization at 5437 W. Division St.

“Some feel crime is down, but others think it’s right where it’s been for years,” she said. “We’ve come a long way, but we still have a hell of a long way to go.”

Many communities are unaware of the rise in non-index crimes because media fail to report them, said police spokesman Patrick Camden. “You put out a press release on non-index crimes, and the media concern isn’t there,” he said. “Are you concerned with a guy standing on the street corner or the homicide rate?”

Still, the information is available at community policing meetings throughout the city, he added.

The focus on declining index crimes may show “a willingness on the part of the American public to believe that all is relatively well in society right now,” said Darnell F. Hawkins, a professor of African American studies, sociology and criminal justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “If you throw in the evidence that the poor and minorities are still struggling, that would spoil the picture. People don’t like that because it shows we have not solved the problem.”

Driving Force
Halfway into their eight-hour shift on a drizzly April night, Chicago Police Officers Edward Tabb and Robert Seaberry got a call from an Austin District resident reporting drug dealing on the 5200 block of West Lexington Street.

Minutes later, the two tactical unit officers arrived at the scene and began questioning three people.

A 24-year-old African American woman from west suburban Hillside admitted casually she had two small bags of marijuana. But she remained oblivious to her predicament, insisting that the officers investigate “the real drug activities” down the block.

“You get caught with two bags, and you just don’t see what the problem is,” Seaberry said about the woman. “In her own mind, it’s OK to have two bags of marijuana. That seems like the norm in this community.”

The scene is a telling portrait of Chicago’s thriving drug trade. The number of narcotics violations, which have skyrocketed 63.7 percent in the 1990s, is the driving force behind the increase in non-index crimes, police data show.

But experts disagree about whether the increase reflects an actual growth in drug offenses or more aggressive efforts by law enforcement officials.

“More police resources are now directed at the public order, nuisance type of crimes, like drug dealing,” said Arthur J. Lurigio, chairman of the Criminal Justice Department at Loyola University.

Police say they are spending more and adding more officers to fight drugs. But they also point out that the city’s drug trade expanded in the 1990s.

“Chicago has become a distribution point for drugs,” said Deputy Chief Philip Cline of the department’s organized crime division.

And shifts in the street drug market may influence violent crime trends, said Paul Goldstein, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an expert on drug violence.

The rise of crack cocaine in the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example, led to a surge in violent crimes, which has subsided, Goldstein said. Chicago’s narcotics-related homicides dropped 44.7 percent from 1990 to 1998, police data show, but rose slightly in 1999.

But that could change. “Anytime you’re creating a new drug market, you go through a cycle of violence,” Goldstein said. “We haven’t had a new drug yet to replace crack.”

Still, the apparent impunity of drug dealers frustrates Alderman Ed Smith, whose 28th Ward encompasses the Harrison and Austin districts.

“It’s a horrendous situation,” Smith said. “Too many young people are involved in drugs. And once they get hooked on it, they would even kill to get it. So we all become susceptible to all kinds of crimes.”

Many residents share his perception. Despite the well-publicized drop in index crimes, about a third of South and West side residents said “a lot” of crimes occur in their neighborhoods, compared with 15 percent of North Siders, according to a 1999 survey by the Metropolitan Chicago Information Center, a non-profit research organization.

But a greater police presence alone will not eliminate the deep social problems that breed crime in poor neighborhoods, residents and police say.

“A lot of people, especially young ones, are selling drugs because that’s the only way to make money,” said Howard Bills, a lifelong West Sider. “They are locked and trapped in this little world.”

Census figures show more than one of four residents in community areas that make up the Harrison, Austin and Grand Central districts live in poverty, providing an ever-ready army of alienated, unemployed young men for local drug lords.

“The minute we arrest five or six on one corner, there’s another five or six ready to take their place in order to sell drugs,” said Harrison District Commander Dana V. Starks. “Now, would it ever get to the time where we will be able to make enough arrests and enough enforcement to stop the drugs? I don’t think we will ever stop drugs completely. If I say otherwise, I would be lying.”

Crime Trends
Drug dealing and other non-index crimes such as fraud have changed “crime opportunities,” said Darrell Steffensmeier, a sociology professor at Penn State University and an expert on crime trends.

“There’s a kind of transformation of crime,” he said. Selling drugs is easier and can be more lucrative than burglary or robbery, he said. Others reject that theory, arguing that most criminals are opportunists. “Very little evidence suggests that offenders will likely pick one crime and just stick to that,” said Robert Sampson, a University of Chicago sociology professor who studies criminology.

Whatever the reasons, the rise in drug and other non-index crimes has rendered the current index system less credible, said Wesley G. Skogan, a professor at Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research and fellow of the American Society of Criminology, an academic association.

In 1930, the FBI adopted the Uniform Crime Reporting program as a way of gauging the nation’s crime trends. The bureau compiles records on the index crime categories using data from law enforcement agencies nationwide. The statistics cover areas representing about 95 percent of the country’s population.

But the categories are a relic of another era, Skogan said. “The FBI doesn’t like to change things,” he said.

FBI officials, however, say change is on the way. The more comprehensive National Incident-Based Reporting System will provide detailed information about 22 broad categories of offenses—including narcotics violations.

That system, which will enhance the Uniform Crime Reporting program, is several years away, said James J. Nolan, chief of the program’s crime analysis and research development unit. So far, only 18 states are submitting data for the new system.

And Illinois does not plan to participate. “We are pretty happy with our current system,” said Master Sgt. Lincoln Hampton, a spokesman for the Illinois State Police. “But if there’s anything that is efficient and good for everybody, we are willing to at least look at it.”