The Real Reasons for Chicago's Deadly Crime Wave

PJ Media reports:

As Rahm Emanuel knows, to take a stand against hit-and-run fatherhood is to cast blame on a significant portion of the Chicago electorate. What’s more, to do so would also cast blame on the leftist policies that gave rise to the welfare state and to which he owes his political career. The vast government apparatus that over the years has come to make fathers unnecessary, at least in a financial sense, lies at the very heart of Democratic politics. Single mothers may do their best, but the research is consistent and irrefutable: boys raised without fathers are far more likely to become involved in crime.

And if Rahm Emanuel cannot bring himself to address the long-term source of Chicago’s troubles, perhaps he can do something about the short-term ones. If the city is plagued with a cohort of dangerous young men, what’s to be done about them? As noted above, the short-term solution is well known but politically fraught: You encourage your police officers to identify and arrest the lawbreakers, and you encourage your prosecutors to bring appropriate charges and seek appropriate sentences. To those who are troubled by the specter of “mass incarceration,” a question: Given the blood running in the gutters of Chicago’s streets last weekend (and most weekends, especially in summer), are there too many people in jail or too few?

But to address this crime wave requires a police force that is fully staffed, suitably equipped, and well led, none of which describes the Chicago Police Department in its current state. Incredibly, Rahm Emanuel acquiesced to allowing the ACLU and the socialist front group Black Lives Matter to participate in the crafting of a consent decree soon to take effect in Chicago, a measure that will divert vast amounts of police manpower and resources from fighting crime to complying with the minutia the decree will demand. The ACLU was already successful in foisting on Chicago’s cops the “Investigative Stop Report,” the two-page form completed on every person detained, however briefly, in the course of a cop’s work day. If your goal is less police work, just add to the paperwork requirement and soon you’ll get what you want. The result of all this in Chicago is clear: the city’s thugs are less fearful of the consequences for their predations than are the police for the consequences of trying to oppose them. If the cops do what must be done, it will result in more violent confrontations between them and the lawbreakers, including more officer-involved shootings, even the most plainly justifiable of which brings protests and accusations of racism. This is how you get 74 people shot in one weekend.

An article well worth your time.