- With the number of murders in Chicago so far this year already surpassing the total for all of 2011, why would the police make it a priority to track down a teenager wanted for only a misdemeanor?
It was because Milton was on the police department’s “heat list” — part of a new anti-violence strategy pushed by Supt. Garry McCarthy to arrest fugitives who have been linked to people who have been killed.
The effort springs from a Yale University sociologist’s finding that these “hot people” are far more likely, as a result of those social ties, to become a victim or perpetrator of deadly violence themselves.
Now usually, anything from Yale involving police work would be fodder for a couple of days worth of comedy. But this statistic caught our eye:
- Citywide, Chicago’s murder rate is 14.5 per 100,000. But it jumps to 44.5 per 100,000 in the Harrison District on the West Side, one of the city’s highest-crime districts. And for “hot people” in that district, the murder rate jumps to 1,865 per 100,000, according to the police department.
Interesting if it bears out over time. The article deals with one individual wanted on a misdemeanor charge who ended up serving 30 days. Granted, that's 30 days he isn't a potential victim, but does it actually do anything except put off his almost inevitable demise?
Like we said, interesting in the short term. Long term, we see is that it shows what a bunch of liars there are out there saying everyone shot is an "innocent victim."