Just outside Chicago, a state senator’s car and other valuables were taken at gunpoint in December, and a group of children, one just 10 years old, carjacked more than a dozen people.
They’re jacking cars to commit another crime, typically more serious robberies or shootings, or joyriding around for the sake of social media purpose and street cred,” said Christopher Herrmann, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
According to the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, only 11% of carjacking offenses resulted in an arrest in 2020, down from 20% in 2019.
Chicago, a city of 2.7 million people, recorded more than three times as many carjackings as New York, where the population is almost three times higher.
Many cities do not have data on carjackings readily available, as police departments will often categorize these crimes as robberies or assaults.
Dallas began classifying these crimes separately from robberies in their data last year and reported 453 carjackings in 2021.
“I do think it’s important to be as granular as possible when you’re collecting data on crime,” she told CNN.
More detailed reporting also makes it easier to spot trends and patterns — in its 2021 report, “How the pandemic is accelerating carjackings in Chicago,” the Crime Lab found that the majority of carjackings were concentrated in the south and west sides of the city, where gun violence is disproportionately high.
Smith says she hopes the detail provided in the Crime Lab report can encourage officials in other cities to take a closer look at the circumstances under which these crimes occur.
The Crime Lab’s study of Chicago’s carjackings found that almost half of all carjacking arrestees in Chicago in 2020 were under 18. Between 2019 and 2020, there was a 104% increase in the number of arrestees who were minors.
Smith noted that kids living in areas with lower internet access had fewer opportunities to engage in school, remote learning and program providers over the past two years.
When a child doesn’t love himself or herself, I worry about the community that has that child.
But there are things not being take care of — whether it’s having positive mentorship, or areas of socialization not available.