It strongly implies that being tougher on crime --- and I'm no defunder --- isn't the solution, most especially because that's been repeatedly tried and there's a plausible argument that it made things worse.
As an outsider, I suspect the lack of meaningful accountability for police allows them to be both excessively violent and not actually any good at preventing crime. It's a notoriously corrupt city: https://news.wttw.com/2022/05/11/three-peat-chicago-ranks-no... . Of course, the McDonald's CEO isn't going to call out this kind of crime, even though it's arguably responsible for allowing the other kind of crime.
I don't think I can offer any solutions other than the long grinding work of local politics. There are solutions available (e.g. Glasgow's long notorious gang problem was addressed by the Violence Reduction Unit, which offers a successful strategy), but probably not the will to use them. Like Russia, you can't win a war if the first priority of too many administrators is stealing from the system.
It's often interesting how much wisdom there is tucked away in simple, old, folky sayings that one only appreciates much later. "Out of the frying pan and into the fire."
Tough on crime -> more people in prison -> criminals are treated like dogs -> significantly more likely to reoffend upon release, and thus we have a cycle.
Fwiw I’ve talked to some very in the know locals, one who owned a ton of liquor stores all around those parts, and the common knowledge is that the police basically don’t have any control and won’t engage on just about anything. It’s essentially run by gangs at this point.
At the same time, there are drug corners all over the west side; there's a gas station in Humboldt Park on my commute that is occasionally an open-air drug market, with dealers literally out in the street doing traffic control. I'm sure that's shocking and upsetting to very in-the-know west siders who own liquor stores. Will CPD really engage over small groups of people selling heroin on a corner? No, I doubt it: I see the same groups day after day on my drive into the office.
Those parts of the city are not safe to be in. It's not OK that there are parts of the city that are not safe to be in. I'm not making excuses. But that absolutely does not describe the area around the McDonalds HQ, or, for that matter, almost anywhere in Chicago that middle/upper-middle class white people live.
I was mugged about ten 8 years ago on a Friday night by three people after they cornered me and threatened to shoot me if I did anything stupid. After they stole my stuff, I went into the nearest Cheesies and called the cops. The group that mugged me told me they'd shoot me if I called them, but meh. They took took a police report, and that was that.
Even though they knew my phone was stolen, they didn't do anything like what they did for you, nor even attempt to. I ended up keeping the phone activated for about 48 hours so I could figure out who had my phone with the hopes that I could my stolen stuff back. The person who stole the phone called a lot of people in that time: their parole officer, an HIV specialist, family. Tried to pass that info onto the police and they wouldn't take it. Parole officer refused to even listen.
So I submitted some FOIAs for the camera footage of the area -- it was right off the red line at Sheffield and Belmont: no footage they said. When I called the investigator who told me that the investigation was suspended and they weren't looking into it anymore (not shocking). But I still persisted on the call to try to get some semblance of traction to get my stuff back and asked why there was no POD footage -- investigator said it moves randomly and didn't catch me getting mugged. Not sure I buy that, but whatever.
To get me off the call, the investigator asked if I had anything to drink the night I was mugged. I said I had a beer about four hours earlier. He used that as a means to say that anything I said about that night was unreliable and then ended the call.
Central and South America and Africa are notorious for having weak policing and high crime.
Meanwhile those famous Nordic and European countries that some like to think prove the softer on crime hypothesis happen to be completely homogenous, low population and high wealth areas. And of those same places that do have bigger cities with less wealth and homogeneity, there's big problems with crime.
Even within the US tougher on crime correlates with less crime once you control for a few things.
I do think school voucher programs is a promising direction, but like anything that becomes a pawn in the culture war, it becomes difficult to discuss it without FUD.