Chicago - the criminal Third World in the USA?

I was struck over the past couple of days by two headlines.  From Mexico:

Tijuana Drug War Rages: 21 Murders in less than 48 Hours

And from Chicago:

As cold weather breaks, violence returns:
24 shot in 30 hours over warmest weekend this year

You can read both articles for yourselves at the links provided.

The trouble is, this wasn't an isolated weekend for Chicago.  Tijuana's violence was unusually high last weekend;  Chicago's wasn't.  Every weekend there are not just dozens or scores, but hundreds of assaults, armed robberies, and the like.  It's unusual for shooting casualties to be in single digits there on any weekend of the year.

Why does the city tolerate this?  Why do the authorities there not step in and do something about it?  It's all because of political corruption.  The "urban underclass" in Chicago are a reliable voting bloc, made so by "community organizers" who hold them in thrall, manipulating them into voting for the political machine in return for dribs and drabs of handouts.  That political machine, on a local and a national level, has manipulated the "urban underclass" into permanent dependency, destroying family structures, undermining local autonomy, creating a permanent bureaucracy to do nothing but administer the welfare system set up to keep the voters under control.  In the process, matters such as crime and violence become nothing more than levers to be pulled, to manipulate voters all the more.

That's aided in part by a law enforcement system that was allowed to get away with abuses for far too long, and had become inured to criticism (remember the Homan Square atrocities?).  The "urban underclass" have been revolting against such police malpractice - and justifiably so - but in doing so, the pendulum has now swung the other way.  The so-called "Ferguson Effect" and their ill-judged use of force against members of the "urban underclass" has led to unprecedented scrutiny of Chicago police, so much so that they're now apparently unwilling to carry out normal policing duties in many of the worst-affected parts of the city.  Sadly, this has given freer rein to the violent elements in those parts . . . and led to headlines such as that above.

Outsiders look at America's crime rates and shudder, pointing fingers at the so-called "gun culture" and other factors as reasons for the appalling statistics.  However, if you took out the inner-city crime figures for the biggest 50 cities in the USA, our crime rates would be negligible compared to the rest of the world.  Crime in America is overwhelmingly an inner-city "ghetto culture" problem.  If you don't believe that, read these mainstream (i.e. not extremist or "fringe") articles:

Crime: The Inner-City Crisis

Family secret: What the left won't tell you about black crime

Why police can’t fix urban America’s violent crime problem

Race and Rising Violent Crime

If those aren't enough to convince you, read the FBI's crime statistics for yourself, then narrow them down by location, race, etc.  The numbers don't lie.

Chicago appears to be a basket case as far as criminal violence is concerned.  The only answer that will work is to remove the violent criminals from society . . . but there doesn't appear to be the political will to make that happen.  Yet another reason to get out of Chicago, and get out of Illinois, which permits, tolerates and ignores Chicago's crime - because the voters of Chicago dominate the state, including elections for state representatives.  The Chicago political machine therefore has influence out of all proportion to what it should have;  and if it suits the Chicago political machine, for whatever reason, to leave its dangerous animals unchained, then unchained they shall be.

Peter