Chicago Mayor Blames Carjacking Surge On Remote Learning: “Pure Boredom”
Darian Douraghy
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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) on Monday explained her belief that much of the city’s skyrocketing wave of carjackings can be explained as the byproduct of boredom experienced by students who are relegated to remote learning amid school shutdowns.
“We started seeing this rise in cases in 2020, and I’ll be frank and say in Chicago, there was a correlation that we believe between remote learning and the rise in carjacking,” she said during a news conference. Lightfoot continued her explanation:
Having talked to states attorneys who are dealing with these cases in juvenile court and others, a lot of parents went to work during the day thinking their teenagers were logged on for remote learning only to find something else. And I ask, ‘is there some new market for stolen cars?’ and unfortunately, the answer was no, that for many of these kids, some of whom had no prior involvement in the criminal justice system this was pure boredom.
But we’re way past that point now, and we’ve got to bend the curve on this issue. This is why we’ve been driving so hard with criminal courts, not to just process a case and then turn these young people back out into the community. We’ve gotta do something to prick their consciences.
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Chicago police have meanwhile indicated that the department is expanding its carjacking task force to address recent surges of violent car thefts, many of which happen at gunpoint.
“The taskforce uses technology at the 911 call center, including a growing network of POD cameras and license plate readers, to identify and track vehicles taken and used in carjackings. Then police arrest people they say are executing the often violent crimes,” ABC 7 reported.
There have been 162 carjackings from the beginning of the year to January 30, “down almost 25% from 215 in 2021,” an NBC Chicago article describing recent city data read. “Before the pandemic was in full swing in 2020, the city had seen 72 — up from 48 in 2019.”
The disgraced Chicago mayor has remained a controversial figure for the majority of her term, making headlines all over last July after her promise to exclude all white journalists from any future press interviews.
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