North Side Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th) on Thursday defended her decision to stop posting crime alerts on social media and automatically sending those alerts to all residents who sign up for her emails — even as shootings, robberies and criminal sexual assaults in her ward skyrocket.
For the next six months, Manaa-Hoppenworth said she will send crime alerts only to those residents and business owners who “opt in.” Everyone on her email address list will continue to receive alerts about imminent crime threats, like bomb threats or active shooters. But other alerts about violent crime in a ward that includes Edgewater and Uptown will go only to those who choose to receive them.
In a blog post, Hoppenworth explained the updated alert system was based on “feedback from our neighbors and commitment to our values of empowerment, anti-racism and community.” She said the decision was “based not only” on community input but “informed by research” that demonstrates how “over-reporting of crime leads to an inaccurate public perception about crime rates” and “negatively impacts our most marginalized and underserved neighbors.”
Crime Watch Boystown was the first to report the change and question the reasoning at a time when shootings in the 48th Ward have reached a nine-year high, robberies are up 78% over last year and criminal sexual assaults have spiked to levels not seen in the ward since 2012.
On Thursday, Hoppenworth made no apologies for the change.
She argued her constituents were “reaching out to say, `We don’t need every single alert about a gunshot’” because it “didn’t make them feel safer.”
“It’s our neighbors. They reach out to us. They stop us on the street. …They don’t feel like the public safety alerts as we were sending them out helped them to feel any safer and didn’t empower them to do anything except that something happened. What do they do with that information after that?” the alderperson said.
Manaa-Hoppenworth said her constituents “absolutely” need to know about violent crime, even if it makes them uncomfortable. But, she said those statistics are readily available on the Chicago Police Department’s website. They’re also discussed at CAPS meetings, beat meetings and at meetings of local police district councils.
“There are many different places to get those statistics for sure. But what is it that the alder’s office can add to the conversation in a way that empowers constituents in communities to do something to get involved? That’s really what we aim to do,” she said.
“We had a lot of long conversations with CAPS and officers who have validated this notion that gang members actually are looking for celebrity. They see themselves in the news and that kind of validates their actions. We don’t want to perpetuate systems like that.”
In a follow-up text, Manaa-Hoppenworth said she has 6,864 email subscribers. Of those, so far 1,080 have opted to receive the regular crime alerts.
Garrett Karp, executive director of the Edgewater Chamber of Commerce, refused to comment on the change. Representatives at the Uptown Chamber of Commerce and Uptown United could not be reached.
Manaa-Hoppenworth was asked to explain how reporting crime undercuts “our values of empowerment, anti-racism and community.”
“There is data that shows that. … Also, you think about the increased incidence of anti-Asian hate because of COVID. Increased reporting in that way has been weaponized in many senses,” she said.
“If you increase reporting of this particular incident of anti-Asian hate, you’re gonna get more policing. You’re gonna get more surveillance. But does that necessarily increase safety for that community? Not necessarily. It’s not just a matter of putting lots of officers in an area. It’s not the only thing to do. It’s got to go deeper than that. That’s what we’re trying to address here, too.”
