Public Opinion on Crime

The latest from The Contrarian site has the results of their crime survey, and it's as bad as you think it is:

• Three weeks ago, Contrarian published a poll on crime in Chicago. Our survey drew over 2,200 responses and the results were stunning.

  When asked if Chicago was in the throes of a crime “crisis,” nearly everyone agreed. This was, in fact, the most polarizing question we asked. While 92.9 percent of respondents agreed crime had reached crisis level, an astounding 81.5 percent said they strongly agreed. Only 5.8 percent believed that crime in Chicago was not a crisis. Only 1 percent of respondents said they neither disagreed nor agreed. That was the lowest group of agnostics we had in the survey.

  Beyond being a crisis, a solid majority — 60 percent— of respondents said that they “strongly disagreed” with the statement “I feel safe in Chicago.” Another 25 percent “somewhat disagreed.” Less than 10 percent (9.5) indicated that they felt safe in the city.

  Perhaps the most incredible revelation was that a majority of respondents (54 percent) admitted they or a family member of been the victim of crime. This proves what we already know: Crime is so far reaching, it is affecting everyone in Chicago. No neighborhood is safe. Only 25 percent of respondents said they (or their family) had not been the victim of Chicago’s crime crisis.

They have more stats and a number of graphs up, all pointing at the failures of Chicago and Illinois pols to have any meaningful effect on reducing crime....or the incentives to commit crime. Crimesha takes the biggest hit, leading us to believe this is exactly why she's not running again. Conehead and Groot are tied for blame, with Fata$$ taking a hit. Even Larritorious get a ding, and he's barely been supernintendo for a few months.

Cops don't appear to be blamed....just politicians, but that could just be the questions asked. Regardless, 92% of respondents want MORE police.

As usual, go read it all.

And the Winner is....

With 62% of the vote:

• Special Ed

We'll use this as the primary designation for EJ, though you're welcome to use any that come to mind and we might vary it up a little - we used half-a-dozen for McCompStat.

Luckily, we don't even have to run a poll for his cheating Lie-tenant girlfriend:

That one was the only entry.

Where to March Followup

The final tally (sort of) is 2,241 to 324 in favor of marching at City Hall.

FOP should have run a quick survey to see where everyone wanted to march. It would have been obvious to a blind monkey that support for marching at HQ was tepid. But we really don't think they foresaw this curveball by Shanks. Now, in light of Shortshanks not running for reelection, one has to ask the question - is there a point to marching at City Hall now?

Is it worth having a march at HQ, now that Daley has declined to run again?
	Heck yeah!
	Not really
pollcode.com free polls

Our money is on Shanks letting J-Fled serve out his last six months, regardless if we march. There's no point in firing him when Daley can keep him around collecting a check and taking shots for the mayor.

UPDATE: We aren't sure why the poll isn't showing totals and percentages this time. We're checking the code this morning. We'll try to get it fixed ASAP.

Where to March?

We've noticed a definite resistance to the upcoming march being held at HQ in 15 September. People are making legitimate complaints that we'll be out of sight, that the media will ignore the march, and that Shortshanks will be out of town. We offer this quick survey:

Where should the FOP hold the upcoming march?
	Headquarters, the source of all stupidity
	City Hall; the source of all evil
pollcode.com

This is, of course, an unscientific poll, but it's something the FOP should have done themselves. There are plenty of reasons for holding the march at HQ - our contract is settled and our fight is against the policies of J-Fled. But there are even more reasons for holding it at City Hall - coverage, exposure, pressure in an election year.

If the FOP fails to address the concerns of the members (and they are legitimate concerns), there is another election coming up this spring. The current board was swept in by the collective outrage of the membership against Bill Nolan. They lost a number of trustee seats during the previous election.

It wouldn't surprise us in the least to see another complete sweep on the horizon.

UPDATE: The numbers are currently running 88% in favor of marching at City Hall with almost 2,000 votes. While unscientific, it is skewed enough that FOP really ought to come forward and explain the reasoning behind picking HQ over City Hall. We're willing to listen to reason.

Bury This Asshat

The Sun Times has a poll up for grading Shortshanks.

So far, the voting is thus:

• A		5%	105 votes
  B		5%	101 votes
  C		7%	153 votes
  D		15%	310 votes
  F		65%	1271 votes

We figure we should be able to get that "F" total somewhere over 3,000 by midnight tonight.

Vote here. Tell your friends.

UPDATE: Damnit - only 2,200 votes for "F." But the percentage of people giving him a failing grade is up to 72%. Keep it up people.

WGN Radio Poll

Interesting:

• Do you trust Mayor Daley to run an Olympics that won't cost the taxpayers too much money?

So far the totals are running 86.5% to 13.5% against the mayor.

Click the link up above and look down the right hand side of the website to vote.

Poll Results

Is this a little better sampling than the FOP vote that "only" had 160 participants?

• Do You, a Reader of the Second City Cop blog, have any confidence in the leadership of Jody Weis?
  
  No 91% 2323 Votes
  Yes 9% 224 Votes
  

Let's see...

• about 16 times the FOP meeting totals;
• 18% of the purported 13,500 - but 25% of the more realistic 10,000;
• not quite unanimous, but definitely a landslide;

And we had a couple lines of code embedded in the poll that was supposed to limit voting to one per IP address so that it wouldn't get overwhelmed by repeaters, so it's reasonably reflective the readership.

UPDATE: The graphic is a mess. We're trying to fix it. You can still vote down a few posts or just CLICK HERE.

Vote SCC!

Someone started a blog to find out the best police blog of 2008 and we've been nominated.

There are a number of fine blogs listed along with our humble effort.

Go peruse the listings. The poll is listed in the right hand margin. Vote.

Poll - Hamsterdam

Homage to "The Wire"

"Hamsterdam" shall be the Official Police Department designation for which District or Area?
	003 District
	006 District
	007 District
	011 District
	015 District
	All of Area 1
	All of Area 2
	somewhere else
pollcode.com free polls

UPDATE: Ok, we get the 023 jokes. Thanks. And someone in another comment section missed the humor that the dope dealers misheard the cops saying "Amsterdam" as "Hamsterdam." We imagine not 1 out of 1,000 dope dealers could even name the continent Amsterdam was located on.

Poll Results

As of this writing, with around 2,000 votes, the poll results are as follows:

• 7% - Yes
• 93% - No

Based upon this poll, we'll expect J-Fed to be stepping down shortly. We hereby offer our services to the mayor, the Police Board and the citizens of the City of Chicago in finding an actually qualified candidate to run the Department properly.

Instead of running it into the ground.

No Confidence Vote

Have at it boys and girls:

Do you, as a reader of the Second City Cop blog, have full and complete confidence in Jody "J-Fed" Weis, to lead the Chicago Police Department?
	Yes
	No
pollcode.com free polls

Alert the media.

UPDATE: So far the poll is running 94% No Confidence. Not really surprising. Readers have said that there are some pop-up ads when you vote, so beware.

A Poll

Just for shits and giggles:

The next Superintendent will be ...
	Maher
	Kirby
	Skahill
	an as yet unnamed female
	Grau
	Keating
	some other political hack
	an outsider or civilian
pollcode.com free polls