Chicago’s Criminal Industrial Complex Denies the People Their Right to Safety

By Paul Vallas

April 24, 2024

You want to know why violent crime is surging in the nation’s urban centers? Look no further than the radical left’s efforts to “reform” the criminal justice system by pretending that criminals are just a new class of victims whose violence is a product of our systemically racist society. According to them it’s not the sociopaths committing the violence, it’s racism. Racism, not crime, explains America’s prison population which has not plummeted as violent crime has surged.

For decades activists have railed against the prison industrial complex, coined after the military-industrial complex of the 1950s, used by scholars and activists to describe the many relationships between institutions of imprisonment such as prisons, jails, detention facilities, and psychiatric hospitals and the various businesses that benefit from them. The term is most often used in the context of the contemporary United States, where there is an expansion of the U.S. inmate population.

What is ignored, is the emerging more powerful criminal industrial complex. A growing group of special interests who have transformed criminal justice reform into a lucrative enterprise. They are the lawyers, advocates, university researchers, consultants, consent decree monitors that have a growing financial interest in treating criminals like victims and police like criminals. It has become a livelihood for many and for some a very lucrative one. This is a clear and present danger to public safety.

The Criminal Industrial Complex has used race quite effectively to legitimize and protect and expand its economic enterprise. It’s not the pursuit of profit but the pursuit of justice.  Never mind the fact that Black males are a disproportionate amount of the incarcerated population because, as a demographic class they commit a disproportionate amount of crime. Police do not witness crimes. Crimes have victims, and victims file reports identifying the suspects. That’s what the police act on.

The Criminal Industrial Complex is particularly determined to continue their narrative of racial bias in police shootings. The fact remains however, that there is no evidence of racial motivated discrimination if the violent crime statistics are to be believed.

According to the US Census Bureau and Statistics almost twice as many whites are killed by cops than Blacks. While Blacks are killed at a disproportionate rate when measured as a percentage of population, the rate is far below their percentage share of violent crime, according to the FBI Crime in the US Statistics (Table 4).

If the statistical breakdown of violent crimes by racial group is to be believed, then one might make the argument that apparent statistical discrimination is rational and not race based. In fact one could conceivably argue that given their share of violent crimes, Whites are actually more likely to be shot by police than Blacks. The only counter would be to argue that violent crime statistics for arrests are skewed by police bias in enforcement but arrest records for violent crimes don’t lie.

Some of the Democratic Party machines biggest contributors are lawyers who sue the city for a living. They also include firms that the city hires to settle lawsuits brought against the city. Between the lawyers, the well-funded criminal justice reform advocates and the universities who are funded to do extensive client directed research to validate reforms, there is big money in criminal justice reform. Welcome to Chicago’s Criminal Industrial Complex. In the wake of Kim Foxx’ eight years in office, a number of Chicago firms now specialize not only in representing perpetrators accused of committing violent crimes, but also scrutinizing and suing police, alleging violations and frequently winning giant, taxpayer-funded settlements that the city leaders seem all too willing to ignore. No coincidence that lawyers specializing in suing the police made up the largest segment of donors to the campaign of Clayton Harris, III, Cook County Board President and Democratic Party Boss Toni Preckwinkle’s handpicked successor to Kim Foxx.

Foxx provided further evidence her office has become an advocate for criminals, not victims, in her defense of Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Mbekeani, head of the state’s attorney’s Conviction Review Unit. Mbekeani operated a state licensed business linking inmates with wrongful conviction claims with private attorneys. This conflict of interest and lying when questioned by a judge about it, got her barred from representing clients before the Cook County Judiciary.

It’s not only that law firms bringing these cases against the city get rich, but so do the often politically connected firms that are brought in to settle these suits also get rich. They rarely litigate. They never counter sue. They settle, take their fee, and then take on the next case. Since 2000, the city has paid out nearly $700 million in 300 cases in which people said they were framed by Chicago police. Of that, $138 million went to outside lawyers who defended the city. The tally covers only federal lawsuits and does not include fees awarded to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

Meanwhile, next to the damage that is done by the Safe-T Act’s elimination of bail, which will increase the number of serious and habitual criminals being released, there is likely to be a dramatic increase in lawsuits pending from the plethora of new mandates that the Act imposes on police. This will make it easier for lawyers to get their clients off while creating more opportunities to file lawsuits suits against the city and the officers.

It’s little wonder why arrests for serious crime are down, as only 5% of those of serious crimes result in an actual arrest being made. Officers and their supervisors and commanders are reluctant to be proactive as the never-ending addition of new rules are like dangerous trip wires for officers, destroying their cases, potentially damaging their careers, degrading their proactive responding for fear of being sued. The Safe-T Act will make life much worse for officers.

Make no mistake as to who will be most impacted by the degradation of the police and the failure to get and keep violent offenders off the street. What is indisputable in the analysis of the crime statistics is the epidemic of “Black on Black” crime that is escalating and ignored by left wing activists. Escalating Black-on-Black crime is terrorizing and destroying inner city communities, and driving what remains of the middle class out of too many major American cities. According to a report on Black families forced to leave Chicago, the city has seen an unprecedented number of Blacks–more than 266,000 have left the city since the year 2000.

The FBI 2019 Uniform Crime Report broke down crime by race. Blacks despite comprising only 12.5% of the population accounted for 55.9% of all homicide offenders, with Whites (including Hispanics) accounting for 41.1%. Among homicide victims 54.7% were Black. The per-capita offending rate for African Americans was roughly eight times higher than that of Whites, and their victim rate was similar. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Blacks between the ages of 10 and 34 die from homicide at 13 times the rate of Whites.

In Chicago, Blacks comprise 32% of the city’s population but almost 80% of the murder and attempted murder victims with over 90% of the assailants Black. The vast majority of the high priority 911 calls including shootings, assaults, robberies, burglaries, carjacking, come from predominantly Black communities. This means more police officers are working in high crime areas where Blacks are dominant so there are going to be more arrests and dangerous and sometimes lethal encounters.

Largely ignored by the anti-police activists is impact violent crime is having on women, particularly Black women. A CBS News Chicago analysis of Chicago Police crime data first found that Black women accounted for 30% of all crime victims in 2022, nearly one in three Black women were targeted by crime in Chicago last year. Black women and girls under 18 are hardest hit, with fourteen Black girls attacked and injured for every one White girl.

If you want to know why crime is up, you need to understand why it went down, dramatically, after the high-crime generation from the 1970s into the ’90s. Enough police on the street to ensure local “police beat “integrity so 911 calls could be responded to in real time. Prosecutors and police recognize that crime rates are a function of expectations about the rule of law that requires acting against quality-of-life crimes, signaling to criminals that the community’s laws would be enforced. Recognition of the need to keep dangerous and habitual felons from returning to the streets.

Public safety is a human right. It constitutes the government’s primary responsibility. The Criminal Industrial Complex is working to deny that right. That these actions will disproportionately impact the Black community is racist, if not by intent, then by outcome. It is their community that disproportionately bear the brunt of violent crime. That violent and habitual criminals are being returned to their communities, and that victims and witnesses that are left unprotected.

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Paul Vallas formerly ran the public school systems in Chicago, Philadelphia and the Louisiana Recovery School District. He was a candidate for Mayor of Chicago.

Comments 20

    1. Ironically, it’s the black population that keeps electing these officials. Look to you (unfortunately) losing to a mayor that is actually worse than Lightfoot. Until they vote for their own safety and welfare, it just continues, as in almost every major city in the nation.

  7. Great column. To quote my father – “What do you expect when we graduate 10x more lawyers than STEMs?”

    Lawyers have an enviable ability to create demand for their services.

  8. I have this great book in my library, by Edward Ball “Slaves in the Family”. Early on in the book he meets a descendent from one of the slave families from his ancestors farm in South Carolina, who tells him “Black people are lost”. And so the book continues about her (and his) journey through the past. Just a beautiful book. Mr. Vallas’s statistics show this, I believe, to a large degree. It is hard to watch, especially when I know, beyond any doubt, that things could be different. Liberals treating the symptoms as always, and almost always using some form of coercion, they advance nothing, they accomplish nothing. There are core solutions, also beyond any doubt – but its tough to communicate them. But I’ll try, and try not to bother things here very much any more.

  9. JK and Mr. Vallas.
    In my life time all i ever wanted to be was a city cop or cfd firefighter paramedic.
    I fulfilled my dream and became a Chicago Cop.

    In the beginning of my career a good high school kid by the name of Ben Wilson was killed exiting the back steps of a CTA bus. A young man with college scholarship’s and the possibility of a pro basketball career.

    My mid career the violence escalated and the victims began to get younger and younger.

    At the close of my career it was just out right Black on Black genocide, and no one cares.

    Try going to a gun shot victim on a city street. Your holding up the legs trying to stop the kid from bleeding out. You say lets say a prayer, you do anything to console the young man, you do an Our Father out loud, and the kid has no idea of the prayer or a conception of a loving God, another being.
    Your treating this person the way you would your or son or daughter.

    I ask can i tell your mom and family anything. “No man.”

    Who did this to you. The answer was always in the face of death, “we will get them,” or some convoluted neighborhood name. The best paramedics in the world show up, the youth is taken into the ambulance and dies on the way or at the trauma center in surgery.

    No we go to the home and break the tragic news to mom or Grandma.
    The scene is processed, we knock on doors looking for witnesses, who never see anything but police or fire misconduct. (Sadly it happens)
    The case is Suspended pending any new leads.

    This is the greatest city in the world, not some third world nation. Take any kid in this city and place him in a nurturing family, make him go to grammar and high school, hire back the truant officers, stop any public aid if the kids are not going to school, hold the parent or parents responsible.

    We have great public school teachers, who unfortunately are raising these kids.
    There is no reason a healthy kid cannot read or write, reason, and learn in this system..

    This is a national embarrassment. Life means nothing to this generation. Our once great City is producing thugs instead of scholars, or good working people.

    When is it going to stop. We over came covid, the inner city Black on Black violence needs to cease, sanctity of life should be the same for all people, everyone gets a chance.

    Sorry if i offended any African Americans, but my heart breaks to witness the violence and suffering which is only getting worse..

    Glad to be retired but i remember all my open murder cases, hoping the cold case detectives can solve a few, to give the victims family some closure, and to get these thugs off the street. How many murders or aggravated batteries and robberies have they gotten away with?

    How many more will be committed, and as a society no one safe with these killers among us..

    Please pray for Chicago.

    1. Patrick. Not that anyone would ever tell you, but thank you for your service.
      Too bad the current cop on the street isn’t appreciated.
      Don’t worry about offending someone for speaking the truth. Those offended are actually the problem and not the solution.

    2. Being a Police Officer is a tough job. But they have a compassionate heart.
      Thank you for speaking out here.
      Thank you for your Service to our Community.

  10. It’s all the dumb whites’ fault. Why didn’t they go to the polls and elect a white mayor, and demand a white police superintendent who would effectively crack those criminal clay heads and reduce Chicago crimes? To my part, though I left living in Chicago about 50 years ago, I challenged the Republican Party Chairman to find a Bernie Epton to run for Mayor and offered him to cut a check for $1000. Instead I get only frequent requests from his office for $50 to field and train plausible candidates for public offices! What a joke!!
    -Nambi, Naperville

  11. Very sad this same group of lawyers, do gooders and other champions of the “oppressed” kept a mayor with common sense and management creds from being elected mayor. Some attorney will take the case of the kid recently who shot first at police and died in the return fire and quietly got a six or seven figure settlement for his family however disfunctional it is for use of “excess force”. Shot spotters and traffic cams are racist. Too bad they help solve crimes.

  12. Paul, when you were defeated it showed how foolish people can be and how blind they are towards understanding what a problem is. The seed was planted. Until it is acknowledged and more importantly understood and people make the proper choices nothing will change. In fact, it’ll get worse. We will have no accountability, no consequences & no responsibility. And frankly that is a shame.

  13. The relative number of violent criminals in our jail system is small. Our prisons are an industry that couples law enforcement to prosecution to fill up with people whose crimes are overwhelmingly non-violent. We have the highest incarceration rates on earth well above any other country, and it is not because we are more violent than they are. It’s because our moral values are xxxxxx.

  14. Is there any research or statistics available the shows the some 266 cases of wrongful incarceration cases that Kim Foxx is so proud of, and how many if any have committed crimes once they’ve been exonerated? Just wondering. Keep up the great work John and Paul

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