Law enforcement in Chicago

NY Times:

Chicago Police Routinely Trample on Rights, U.S. Finds

Officials have agreed to a series of reforms that the Police Department will make to address the problems detailed in a scathing report.
Sometimes it feels like the crooks have better PR than the cops.  I suspect there is a great deal of frustration in the communities affected by crime and the law enforcement community that has to deal with the crime.

The simple fact is that less policing is required in neighborhoods not as impacted by crime.  In high crime neighborhoods, police need to increase their force to space ratio to impede the criminal conduct and that inconveniences people not only engaged in crime but just going about their everyday life.  In those situations sometimes mistakes are made that exacerbate the discomfort.  Those mistakes can be made by the police as well as the citizens.

Because Chicago has a terrible crime problem, the police probably feel that they need to be tougher in dealing with it.  They should consider counterinsurgency warfare tactics where the emphasis is on protecting the people in those neighborhoods from the predators who live among them.  To be effective they will need cooperation from the community and that also appears to be in short supply in Chicago.

By just focusing on the police, the DOJ is missing half of the equation for fixing the problem.

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