New Fact Sheet & Interactive Map: Arrests on Chicago Public Schools Properties 2011 and 2012

print by Sarah Atlas for Black & Blue Exhibition (3/13)

Last January (2012), we published a report titled “Policing Chicago Public Schools.” The report relied on data from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to show (for the first time in seven years) the type of offenses and the demographics (gender, age and race) of the juveniles arrested on Chicago Public Schools (CPS) property in calendar year 2010.

We are currently working to update this report by publishing data from the Chicago Police Department about youth arrests (18 & under) on CPS property in calendar years 2011 and 2012. In the meantime, we are pleased to share a preview of that report today through the following FACT SHEET. The fact sheet offers preliminary data including the gender, age, and race of the youth (18 & under) arrested on CPS property in 2011 and 2012. New this year, we have broken the data out according to arrests on school grounds and in school buildings.

Our final report will be available in late summer.

Additionally, we are excited to share a wonderful interactive map that was created by Chris Skrable featuring information about crimes and arrests on CPS properties for the 2011-2012 academic year. This map only includes crimes and arrests that took place during the school day between 8 am and 5 pm. The map allows you to search by school by simply typing the name of your school in the search bar at the top right of the page. If searching for Kilmer Elementary for example, type: Kilmer Elementary, Chicago [Don’t forget to include Chicago so that it can direct you to the appropriate location].

Once you find your school on the map, click on it and you will see demographic, crime, and arrest data. Importantly, the data is presented as a ratio per 100 students which allows for comparisons between schools. Finally, you can play around with the zoom feature on the map located on the left side. We thank Chris for his hard work on this terrific resource. Chris created the map as part of a GIS course taught by Dr. Mike Steihl at Loyola University. We are excited to share the other maps created by other students in our upcoming reports about juvenile arrests in Chicago that will be published in late summer and in the fall.

You can find the interactive map HERE.

Let us know what you think about these new resources in the comments section below or by emailing us at chiyouthjustice@gmail.com. We are always happy to get feedback about our work and appreciate hearing how our resources are being used!

Promising Trend: Juvenile Arrests in Chicago Continue to Decrease

Juvenile Arrests (17 and Under, City of Chicago, 2009-2012)

2009	2010	2011	2012	% change
31,224	27,563	25,111	22,877	-26.7%
Source: CPD Research and Development Division, Research and Analysis Section

There has been a continuing decrease in the number of juvenile arrests (youth 17 and under) in Chicago. Since 2009, juvenile arrests in the city have dropped by 26.7%.  Stay tuned for our upcoming report which will update Arresting Justice that was released in 2011 and includes data from 2009 & 2010. The new report includes data from 2011 and 2012 and will be released in early September.

More 17 Year Old Arrested for Felonies in Cook County Than Anywhere Else in U.S.

Please read the following article by Angela Caputo in the Chicago Reporter:

That’s because Illinois is one of 10 states in the nation that automatically send 17-year-olds facing felony charges to adult courts. A Chicago Reporter analysis of criminal court data shows that an increasing number of 17-year-olds in Cook County have been convicted as adults compared with five years ago. In 2011, 907 17-year-olds were convicted, up 15 percent from 789 in 2007.

In 2012, Cook County is on pace to surpass last year’s record, tallying 41 percent more convictions as of April than during the same period in 2011.

25 Arrests A Day on CPS Properties…

From Catalyst Chicago:

The student group Voices of Youth in Chicago Education held a City Hall press conference Tuesday to urge CPS to stop having students arrested for misdemeanor offenses, citing its analysis of school arrest data and claiming that the city arrests 25 students, on average, every day.

[…]

VOYCE says police made 2,546 school-based arrests between September 2011 and February 2012, according to data supplied by the civil rights organization Advancement Project. The VOYCE analysis pointed out that the arrestees included three 9-year-olds, eight 10-year-olds, and 17 children who were age 11. Of those arrested, 75 percent (1,915) were African-American, 21 percent (540) were Latino and 3 percent (75) were white.

[…]

The most common misdemeanor charge was battery causing bodily harm, which 366 people were charged with. Another 358 were charged with “physical contact” battery and 313 with “reckless conduct,” criticized by VOYCE members as a catch-all charge for rowdy students.

CPS Arrests-by-age-and-race (PDF, September 2011 to Feb 2012)

CPS Number-of-juvenile-arrests-by-statute (PDF, September 2011 to Feb 2012)

Chicago Police Department: Some New 2010 Numbers

For those who are interested in a more comprehensive report about juvenile arrests in Chicago (2009-2010), you can review our Arresting Justice report which was released in June 2011. However, today I noticed that the Chicago Police Department has officially released its 2010 Annual Report. It includes some findings that we didn’t have when we released Arresting Justice last year. Namely more details about how CPD handles station adjustments and the exact number of cases that CPS referred to juvenile and criminal courts.

Disposition of Juveniles Processed by the Department, 2009-2010

Source: Chicago Police Department 2010 Annual Report: A Year in Review

As you can see in the table below, many juvenile cases involve school absenteeism (43.4%) and curfew violations (27.1%).

Note: CPD defines youths as people under 17 years old in their annual report. Arresting Justice mostly defined youth as people under 18 years old.

**Status offenses are those if committed by an adult would not be crimes. These include running away, truancy and possession of cigarettes.

	2009	2010	% Change
School Absentees	41,808	37,257	-10.9%
Curfew Violations	23,275	23,275	0.0%
Station Adjustments	7,471	8,773	17.4%
Referred to Agencies	1,826	2,764	51.4%
Referred to family	5,645	6,009	6.4%
Directed to Juvenile Court	12,603	16,138	28.0%
Directed to Criminal Court	104	77	-26.0%
Released w/out charging	117	101	-13.7%
Status Offenses	169	256	51.5%
TOTAL	85,430	85,7760	0.4%

Policing Chicago Public Schools – A New Report – January 25th

Youth Art from Suspension Stories

Join us on Wednesday January 25th from 10:30 am to Noon for the release of our new report “Policing Chicago Public Schools: A Gateway to the School-to-Prison Pipeline.”

The report written by Mariame Kaba and Frank Edwards relies on data from the Chicago Police Department to show (for the first time in seven years) the type of offenses and the demographics (gender, age and race) of the juveniles arrested on CPS properties in calendar year 2010.

In our discussions about the school-to-prison pipeline, we need concrete examples of how the process works. As such, it is important to understand the role that police and security staff play in our schools. Yet reports about police involvement in CPS have unfortunately not been readily available to the public. There is no easily accessible citywide or statewide data that illustrate how many students are arrested in schools each year. The last report that was written about the role of police in Chicago Public Schools was published in 2005 by the Advancement Project. That report, “Education on Lockdown,” found that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) referred over 8,000 students to law enforcement in 2003. Forty percent of these referrals were for simple assault or battery with no serious injuries. Most of these cases were dismissed.

Our purpose in writing this report is to ensure that the public is informed about the scope and extent of policing in Chicago Public Schools. We hope that this will galvanize educators, parents, students, policymakers and community members to advocate for a dramatic decrease of CPS’s reliance on law enforcement to address school discipline issues. Instead, we would like to see an increase in the use of restorative justice, which is an effective approach, to respond to student misbehavior in our schools.

In light of a push for budget austerity, limited resources should be re-directed away from policing and into affirming programs and opportunities for students. This, we believe, will improve the overall well-being of all stakeholders in the educational system (most especially students). We also call on our city council to improve data transparency by passing an ordinance requiring CPS and CPD to report quarterly on the numbers of students arrested in the district. Having timely and reliable information will support efforts to hold CPS and CPD accountable.

Finally, we believe that student privacy should be protected rather than further eroded. Current reporting practices between schools and law enforcement do not need to be reformed to increase the exchange of student information between these parties.

When: January 25, 2012
Time: 10:30 am to Noon
Where: Northwestern University Law School, Booth Hall (Room 204), 357 East Chicago Ave.
RSVP: projectniaevents@hotmail.com

This event is co-sponsored by the Children and Family Justice Center.

2010 Demographics on Chicago Juvenile Arrests

 

2010	Race	Female	Male	Unknown	Total
Chicago – Total Arrests	Asian/Pacific Islander	19	83	0	102
	African American	3,284	17,644	2	20,930
	Other	2	10	0	12
	Unknown	1	12	0	13
	Black Hispanic	22	133	0	155
	Caucasian	150	786	0	936
	White Hispanic	690	4,728	0	5,418
	Total	4,168	23,396	2	27,566*
Source: CLEARDW query 12 June 2011 – obtained through FOIA

We’ve included an (*) beside the total numbers that do not correspond with the total arrest numbers that we received in the per district FOIA request that forms the basis of the “Arresting Justice” report.  Usually the numbers are not very far off (plus or minus single digits). 

Black Teens More Likely To Be Charged With Misdemeanor Crimes

A Chicago Reporter analysis of Cook County court cases found that black teens aged 15, 16 and 17 are nearly four times more likely to be charged with misdemeanor crimes than white and Latino youth combined.

2009 Demographics on Chicago Juvenile Arrests

From our Arresting Justice Report:

2009	Race	Female	Male	Unknown	Total
Chicago – Total Arrests	Asian/Pacific Islander	21	106	0	127 (0.4%)
	African American	3,618	19,956	1	23,575 (75.5%)
	Other	3	16	0	19
	Unknown	7	22	0	29
	Black Hispanic	33	160	0	193 (0.6%)
	Caucasian	216	938	0	1,154 (3.7%)
	White Hispanic	754	5,371	0	6,125 (19.6%)
	Total	4,652 (14.9%)	26,569 (85%)	1	31,222
Source: CLEARDW query 12 June 2011 – obtained through FOIA

Arresting Justice: A New Report about Juvenile Arrests in Chicago

Contrary to sensational reports of “flash mobs”, youth are the minority of people who get arrested in Chicago.  The Chicago Police Department made 181,669 arrests in 2009 – approximately 17% were of people seventeen and younger (31,224).

Today, First Defense Legal Aid (www.first-defense.org) and Project NIA (www.project-nia.org) have released a new report documenting juvenile arrests in Chicago in 2009 and 2010. The key data points in the report are that:

1. According the Chicago Police Department, there were 27,563 arrests of juveniles 17 and under in 2010 in the city of Chicago (some youth may be arrested more than once).  This number is down from 31,224 in 2009.

2. In 2010, the 8^th district had the highest total number of juvenile (17 and under) arrests in Chicago with 2,247.

3. From 2003 to 2009, the total number of juvenile (16 and under) arrests in Chicago declined by 25.7%.

4. Most of the juvenile arrests in 2010 (63%) happened in 10 out of the 25 districts.  In order of most to least, these districts are: 8, 11, 15, 4, 6, 3, 5, 7, 25, and 10.

5. Most juvenile arrests in Chicago are for misdemeanor offenses, generally, or felony drug possession.

6. There were 5,574 arrests of juveniles 17 and under on school property in the city of Chicago in 2010.

7. There were 1,733 formal and 7,040 informal station adjustments reported by CPD in 2010.

To access the full report, visit the Arresting Justice blog at HERE.