‘We’ve Moved Past’ Jailing Criminals, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Says

Craig Bannister
August 26th, 2025 12:43 PM

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Jailing criminals is an outdated and ineffective way to fight crime, Democrat Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson declared Monday at a press event denouncing the possibility of President Donald Trump deploying federal law enforcement to help make the city safe, as he did in the Nation’s Capital.

Chicago has “moved past” jailing criminals, Mayor Johnson said, accusing America of having an “addiction” to putting convicted criminals behind bars:

“We cannot incarcerate our way out of violence. We’ve already tried that and we ended up with the largest prison population in the world without solving the problems of crime and violence.

“The addiction on jails and incarceration in this country, we have moved past that.

“It is racist; it is immoral; it is unholy – and it is not the way to drive violence down.”

“We cannot return to the same failed strategies that got us here in the first place,” the mayor claimed.

Chicago needs more money – not more law enforcement – Johnson said:

“We need the federal resources to make sure that we’re building more affordable housing, expanding mental and behavioral health care, education – all of these things that could reduce crime and provide real community safety.”

Housing, health care and education are “proven solutions” that require ever-increasing sums of federal money, Johnson said:

“Under the previous presidential administration, we requested more federal resources to address gun violence in our cities. We continue to make that same call. We have made significant progress on our own. But, there is so much more that we can do, if we had real support from the federal government.”

Still, Mayor Johnson’s Biden-backed “proven” solution has left the level of violence in Chicago worse than it was before the COVID 19 pandemic, according to analysis of crime data between 2019 and 2024 by The New York Post, which reports that aggravated assault is up 16%, carjackings are up 60% and gun assaults are up 46%.

In 2024, Chicago had the most murders among the nation’s 75 largest cities and a murder rate that was five times than that of New York City.

 

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