Fact check: How has the Chicago Police Department's strategy impacted crime rates from 2020 to 2025?

1. A New Three-Year Strategy and Its Promised Foundations that Aim to Change Policing

The CPD rolled out a three-year organizational strategy emphasizing workforce development, community trust, neighborhood safety and infrastructure, positioning those pillars as the mechanisms expected to influence crime trends through 2025. Coverage of the strategy, including statements by Superintendent Larry Snelling, frames the plan as comprehensive and forward-looking, aiming to address both immediate crime challenges and systemic capacity gaps, which suggests a causal narrative linking organizational reforms to public safety outcomes. Reporting on the initiative underscores its centrality to the department’s efforts to reverse crime increases observed earlier in the decade ^{[5] [1]}.

2. Citywide Trends: Modest Declines in Violent Crime and Homicides

Multiple analyses indicate citywide declines in violent crime and homicides by mid-2025, with some sources quantifying decreases: violent crime victimizations down 22.2 percent and homicides down roughly 32 percent through July 2025, while another account cites a 5.5 percent drop in violent crime in the most recent 12 months and an 11 percent decline versus 2023 ^{[2] [1] [6]}. These figures portray a trend of improvement across aggregate metrics, but the scope and measurement windows differ between reports, which affects direct comparability and causal attribution to CPD strategy alone.

3. Local Success Stories: Sharp Reductions in Targeted Districts

On a more localized level, precinct-focused reporting credits the CPD strategic focus with substantial declines in serious offenses inside targeted areas, exemplified by the 9th District’s reported 34 percent drop in aggravated batteries, 62 percent fall in armed robberies, and 25 percent decline in burglaries. These precinct-level outcomes suggest the strategy’s targeted deployments or interventions achieved discernible results in specific neighborhoods. However, such localized improvements do not automatically translate to uniform citywide effects, and reporting does not fully isolate the strategy from parallel interventions such as community programs or broader social trends ^[3].

4. Independent Verification and National Comparisons: Chicago’s Relative Position

Independent analyses and national data context place Chicago’s 2024–2025 trajectory more favorably than some political rhetoric suggests, with articles noting murder rates falling 31 percent since 2024 and violent crime down relative to pre-pandemic years, positioning Chicago lower among large U.S. cities on a per-capita basis. These comparative accounts provide context that Chicago’s improvements are not isolated and that headline perceptions about the city’s criminality may overstate current risk; still, differences in data sources and year-to-year baselines require careful reading before crediting any single policy as decisive ^{[7] [6]}.

5. Contested Interventions: Community Workers and Accountability Concerns

The strategy’s emphasis on violence intervention included partnerships with community-based “peacekeepers” and anti-violence workers, but reporting documents allegations of some program participants committing crimes, raising questions about vetting and accountability. This critique complicates claims of unalloyed success and fuels debate over whether funds should be redirected to law enforcement capacity or expanded for violence-prevention programming. Proponents, including local politicians, counter that such programs contributed to neighborhood-level declines and merit further investment, exposing a policy divide on implementation and oversight ^{[4] [8]}.

6. Reconciling Data, Attribution, and Policy Implications

Attributing crime declines from 2020–2025 solely to CPD strategy is difficult because multiple factors—departmental reforms, intervention programs, broader social dynamics, and data baselines—intersect. The analyses together show correlated timing between the strategy rollout and improvements, with precinct-level wins and citywide reductions, yet they also expose contested elements like program integrity and disparate local outcomes. Policymakers should therefore treat the strategy as a contributing factor among others and prioritize independent evaluation, rigorous accountability for partner programs, and transparent metrics to isolate the policy’s net effect ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

7. Bottom Line for Decision-Makers and the Public

The compiled evidence indicates the CPD’s 2020–2025 strategy correlates with notable reductions in violence in many parts of Chicago and measurable citywide declines, but the results are uneven and accompanied by legitimate concerns about program management and attribution. Decision-makers must weigh precinct-level successes against accountability lapses in intervention programs and pursue multi-source evaluations to guide funding and operational choices. Continued monitoring, publicly transparent data, and independent audits will be necessary to convert these mixed outcomes into sustained, scalable public-safety gains ^{[3] [2] [8]}.