Hey, Mayor 6.6: When will you admit violent criminal gangs are the problem?
I was strolling through the park one day in the merry, merry month of July (as the old song goes) when I stumbled upon something that perfectly captures the absurdity of Chicago’s approach to crime. It was a Lime scooter, not particularly remarkable in itself, except for one detail: It was covered in gang graffiti. Think about that for a moment. Not a wall. Not an abandoned building. Not a railroad viaduct. A rented electric scooter that exists for one purpose — to move people from Point A to Point B. Apparently, even that has become gang territory.
Now, I realize this is anecdotal evidence. One scooter does not constitute a scientific study. But it does illustrate something everyone in Chicago already knows and our political leadership desperately tries not to acknowledge: The overwhelming majority of serious violence in this city is connected to gangs. Not poverty alone. Not climate change. Not racism. Not a lack of social workers. Not a shortage of government programs. Gangs.
The problem is obvious. In some neighborhoods, everybody knows who the gang members are. Chicago Police know who they are. The neighbors know who they are. The victims certainly know who they are. Yet somehow our political class continues to treat gang violence as though it were a random weather phenomenon rather than the predictable result of organized criminal behavior. Every weekend we see the same headlines: Drive-by shootings, retaliatory shootings, street-corner shootings, carjackings, armed robberies. Again and again, investigators discover gang connections. Again and again, the same names, the same crews, the same neighborhoods, the same feuds.
In fact, many experienced law enforcement officers will tell you that a relatively small number of individuals are responsible for a disproportionate share of the violence. In previous discussions of crime on these pages, we have noted estimates that only a few hundred chronic offenders drive much of the bloodshed in some of Chicago’s most troubled neighborhoods. Yet, instead of focusing relentlessly on those offenders and the gangs that support them, our political leadership continues searching for explanations everywhere except the obvious one.
Which brings us to another self-inflicted wound. Chicago does not even maintain the kind of gang database it once had to help monitor gang activity and identify emerging threats. Why? Because concerns about disparate impact and civil liberties eventually overwhelmed concerns about public safety. Like so many other tools abandoned in the name of progressive orthodoxy, such as the gone but not forgotten ShotSpotter, it may not have been perfect, but it was better than pretending gangs do not exist. When a city is struggling with organized criminal groups that openly mark territory, recruit members, and wage violent feuds with unacceptable collateral damage, deliberately blinding yourself is not a strategy.
Instead of focusing relentlessly on the people pulling the triggers and the organizations directing them, Chicago’s leadership prefers to discuss “root causes.” Now, to be fair, root causes may exist. Family breakdown, poor schools, economic dysfunction, drug abuse, and a host of other social problems undoubtedly contribute to gang recruitment. However, while academics debate root causes, people are getting shot. The existence of root causes does not obligate one to deal with the effects. If your house is on fire, you can certainly discuss what caused the fire. You can debate building materials, electrical codes, and social inequities. But first, you put out the fire. Chicago, too often, does the opposite.
No one exemplifies this confusion better than Mayor Six Percent. Whether because of ideology, identity politics, or simple stubbornness, the mayor consistently appears reluctant to confront the gang problem directly. One cannot help but conclude that concerns about “disparate impact” play a role. The reality is most gang members are Black or Hispanic. That is an uncomfortable fact, but facts do not cease to exist because they are politically inconvenient. Perhaps he would act if gang membership were evenly distributed across every racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic group. It is not. Reality is under no obligation to conform to political theory.
The proper response to that reality is not denial. The proper response is enforcement and real justice that favors the interests of the prey over the predators, the victims over the perpetrators. Even from an identity politics perspective, the victims are, after all, overwhelmingly people of color — Black and Hispanic. The bullets do not care about identity politics. The mothers burying their children do not care about academic theories. The store owners getting robbed do not care about fashionable slogans. They want safety. They want order. They want the government to perform its most basic function: Protecting innocent people from violent criminals -- basic public safety.
That requires a coordinated effort by every level of government — the city, the county, the state, and the federal government. Unfortunately, these entities often seem more interested in fighting one another than fighting the gangs. Political disagreements, ideological battles, and personality conflicts routinely get in the way of practical solutions. Meanwhile, citizens continue to die. Surely, preventing murder ought to be one area where Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, city officials and federal officials can find common ground. If not, what exactly is government for?
The solution is not particularly complicated. Treat gangs the way an exterminator treats pests. No, you may never eliminate them entirely. Human nature being what it is, there will always be some individuals willing to engage in criminal behavior. But the goal should be relentless suppression. Make gang activity dangerous for gang members. Make it expensive. Make it inconvenient. Make it unattractive. Use every lawful tool available: Aggressive prosecution, RICO investigations, enhanced penalties for repeat offenders, targeted intelligence gathering, witness protection, federal partnerships, and focused deterrence. And perhaps most importantly, stop pretending that gangs are merely misunderstood social clubs. They are criminal organizations. They generate violence because violence is how they maintain power and make money.
As Fyodor Dostoevsky once suggested, society ultimately deals with crime through punishment. The principle is ancient. It predates modern sociology, modern politics, and modern government itself. The Old Testament codifies it. The Romans understood it. Every successful civilization has understood it. People weigh costs and benefits. When the costs of criminal behavior decline, criminal behavior increases. When the costs rise, criminal behavior declines. It’s behavioral economics 101 — to change human behavior, change the incentives to optimize the cost-benefit equation.
This is not complicated. What is complicated is convincing our elected officials to act accordingly. That begins with public education. It begins with telling the truth. It begins with refusing to allow every discussion of crime to be diverted into abstractions and excuses. At the Contrarian, we try to contribute to that effort by saying what many Chicagoans already know, but too few public officials are willing to say aloud: gangs are the predominant part of the violence problem. Not all of it, certainly. There are the criminally insane, for example, but gangs account for most of it. And until we address that reality honestly, the shootings will continue.
To some extent, that’s actually a blessing in disguise, an opportunity. Because such a small relative number of miscreants account for as much as 90 percent of gun violence we can deal with it decisively and cost-effectively, if only we possess the wisdom and the will.
The second step is political pressure. Write your alderman. Write your state representative. Write your state senator. Write your member of Congress. Write Mayor Six Percent. Write Toni Preckwinkle. Show up at meetings. Submit public comments. Make phone calls. Demand answers. The political left has long understood that activism influences public policy. Conservatives and centrists too often fall short in that arena.
That’s an area for growth. Politicians respond to pressure. If they hear the same message often enough from voters, eventually some of it may penetrate even the thickest political skull.
If it is not, it does not; there is another remedy available in what remains of our democracy: The ballot box. Vote out DSA aldermen. Vote out politicians who refuse to acknowledge the gang problem. Vote out Mayor Six Percent, because if experience is any guide, it is highly unlikely that these notions are ever going to penetrate his thick skull, no matter how often Chicagoans repeat them. That is a far better outcome than allowing gang bullets to penetrate the skulls of innocent Chicagoans. The gangs are not hiding. The problem is not hidden. The solution is not mysterious.
The only remaining question is whether our leaders will finally find the courage—and the common sense — to do something about it.
George Shay, a lifelong Chicagoan, is an activist and writer. You can follow his Common Sense Substack blog using this link.
