Chicago on pace for 6 times as many carjackings as eight years ago: report

CHICAGO - Chicago carjackings are on pace to rise again in 2022 after already dramatic increases in 2020 and 2021, trending towards a number that would be six times higher than just eight years ago.

"The data on Chicago carjacking through the years, and especially through the first half of 2022, serves as an unfortunate example of what happens when a city becomes 'open' for crime, with no real deterrence or consequences in most instances," wrote Wirepoints Senior Editor Matt Rosenberg, who analyzed the 2022 data.

Chicago is on pace for 1,960 carjackings in 2022, according to data compiled by Wirepoints, blowing through the 1,848 record set just last year. The number would represent an over sixfold increase from 2014, when the city recorded 303 carjackings.

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The dramatic rise in carjackings follows a trend that started in 2020, when the number of incidents crossed over the 1,000 mark for the first time at 1,413, up from the 603 recorded in 2019.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, shown at City Hall on April 15, 2021. (Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The numbers are in line with an overall rise in crime that has plagued Chicago and other major American cities in the last two years, a problem some experts have pinned on pandemic-related lockdowns and a more passive approach to policing in the wake of social unrest following the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

"Certainly, the protests and riots mid-2020 after the death of George Floyd followed a pattern of spiking violence that we've seen following past viral police incidents, such as the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. This pattern has been termed the ‘Ferguson Effect’: police pull back while violent crime spikes precipitously," Hannah Meyers, director of the policing and public safety initiative at the Manhattan Institute, told Fox News Digital of the crime spike earlier this year.

The Wirepoints analysis pointed to similar problems in Chicago, arguing that a lack of consequences for committing crimes has helped spearhead the increase.

"Chicago’s growing carjacking problem is a microcosm of what’s gone wrong in the city," Rosenberg wrote. "Carjackings are more frequent, they are more weaponized, and there are fewer consequences than at almost any time in recent history."

Making matters worse, the data shows that 76% of carjackings in the city this year have been classified as "aggravated," meaning either a weapon was used during the crime or there was a victim present that was older than 60 or under 16 years old.

The city is also making fewer arrests for carjackings despite the surge, with rates of arrest averaging about 10% between 2010 and 2019 before falling to six percent in 2022, near the record low of five percent set in 2020.

Chicago police attempting to pull over a carjacked vehicle. (FOX32 Chicago)

"It appears clear: the City of Chicago’s political leadership does not have the will, the capability, or the competence to tamp down on this insidious crime," Rosenberg wrote. "Without a major course correction, it spells even deeper trouble for the city."

The Chicago Mayor's office and Chicago Police Department did not immediately return a Fox News request for comment.