Beautiful downtown Chicago is home to the magnificent Sears Tower and innovative Chicago Art Museum. It has beautiful and safe neighborhoods, such as Lincoln Park and Wicker Park. However, if you move out of these nicer areas to places like South Shore and Washington Park, the neighborhoods change drastically. The accommodations aren’t as nice and you aren’t as safe. In fact, the weekend of August 9th – August 11th, 5 people were killed and another 47 injured because of gun violence. At least one of these cases will be left as an unsolved murder, only showing people that they can get away with these heinous acts.
Chicago isn’t the only place struggling. The entire country faces a crime problem. While crime has significantly decreased in the country since its peak, there’s still a lot of crime in the United States, and a lot of it can be easily prevented. On top of it, many crimes aren’t solved. In fact, about 46% of violent crimes were not solved in 2017. Each unsolved murder is only encouraging more people to do these heinous things.
Why Crime Goes Unsolved
The truth of the matter is that solving murders and other violent crimes can be difficult. You have to put a lot more time into that than stopping the young kids down the block who like to use recreational drugs. Many times, police are encouraged to avoid difficult cases due to the metrics the force uses for promotions and raises. If you spend too much time on a large case, you might not get many other arrests. It’s a sad fact of the job that allows the more important crimes to be swept under the rug and possibly never solved at all.
Furthermore, there are a lot of illegal weapons on the streets now. It’s hard to track these weapons to a particular person. If a weapon is attached to someone, tracking down the killer becomes much easier. Otherwise, the weapons can belong to just about anyone. It removes a lot of initial evidence that can be helpful.
Finally, many victims don’t or can’t cooperate with the authorities. In many cases, the victim is killed. At that point, the victim cannot help themselves or the police achieve justice. In other cases, people don’t cooperate because they don’t want to get a friend, family member, or significant other in trouble. It could be someone they know, and they might fear retaliation. They also probably don’t trust the police. If they don’t trust the police, they may not want to talk. They also might look to resolve the issue themselves. Unfortunately, this usually only leads to more bloodshed and even more crime.
Things People Can do to Help Reduce Crime Rates
Many people see the crime problem in America as a helpless cause, but there are plenty of things that we can do to help eliminate crime. First, advocate for strict laws against people who are caught with illegal weapons and people who commit violent crimes. When people see serious repercussions, they will think twice before committing the crime. To do this, vote. Research your candidate and see who you think has the best solution to the problem. You are allowed to miss at least a portion of your day at work to vote, but let your employer in advance that you might be a bit late.
Next, it’s crucial for you to speak up when you see something. It doesn’t mean you are a snitch. It means you are doing your part to keep your neighborhood safe. It will help authorities put people who should be contained behind bars.
Lastly, we need to instill trust in the police. Police officers need to meet the people in the community they serve and get involved. They also need to take the proper steps to prevent systematic oppression of certain minorities and keeping all incidents open for the public to see what happened. When we do this, we will be able to move forward from some serious problems with the system that are preventing authorities from preventing this very preventable crime.
While the police need to do their part, we as civilians need to do our part as well. We need to get out and vote. We also need to avoid crime ourselves. While crime may not be the worst it’s ever been, we can lower it even more if we work together.