Chicago Crime Rate Compared to Other Cities as Trump Threatens Crackdown

8/25/25
President Donald Trump has threatened to send National Guard troops into Chicago to address crime—but the latest data from the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBI) shows several major cities have higher rates of violent crime. Trump has floated the idea of federalizing the National Guard to deal with crime in large cities run by Democrats after deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C., earlier in August. The idea was met with criticism from Illinois leaders such as Johnson and Governor J.B. Pritzker, both Democrats, who have pointed out that violent crime is on the decline in the city, which had previously struggled with the issue. While crime temporarily increased across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has since fallen off in the years since. If Trump were to send National Guard troops into Chicago over objections from the governor, that would likely set off legal challenges, as presidents can only do so in specific circumstances. Chicago's violent crime rate remains lower than that of the two largest cities, according to the FBI crime data. It has a violent crime rate of about 540 violent crimes per 100,000 residents.

For comparison, New York and Los Angeles have violent crime rates of about 671 and 728 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, respectively. In fact, of the 10 largest police departments included in the FBI data, Houston is the city with the highest violent crime rate—about 1,148 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, according to the data. Other cities like Philadelphia and Phoenix also have higher violent crime rates than Chicago—about 909 and 800 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, respectively. Chicago Mayor Brandon tJohnson's office has touted a decline in crime over the past year. According to a press release from his office, violent crime is down more than 21 percent and homicides are down more than 32 percent compared to this time in 2024.

Click to expand...

Trump isn't interested in combatting crime. If he was, his administration would allocate more federal funds to cities to hire more police officers. The Trump administration has cut such funding to many "blue" cities and states across the nation.

What Trump IS interested in is DISTRACTION. Diverting the attention of Americans away from his failing economic policies, his mounting tariff costs, his immensly unpopular Big Ugly Bill, and his failure to get tough with Vladimir Putin.

Trump is a great entertainer. He will just keep people busy with all sorts of fun distractions.

The point is the entertainment though. People will pay to watch. And they are.

Diversion from Epstein also.

Trump has never explained how and why Jeffrey Epstein's sex-trafficking partner - Ghislaine Maxwell - was transferred from a federal prison in Florida to a "Club Fed" facility in Texas after an interview with former Trump personal attorney Todd Blanche. Maxwell was convicted of assisting Epstein to assault and rape over 200 underage women and children. She received a 20 year prison sentence. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BoP) never transfers a sexual predator such as Maxwell to a minimum security BoP facility. Yet that is exactly what happened here. If you read the Blanche/Maxwell interview transcripts, you come to realize that it is a self-serving "choreographed" effort to exculpate Donald Trump and Maxwell herself. Blanche quite often asked leading questions, and when Maxwell was slow to respond, Blanche rephrased the question in a manner to spur a certain response. Maxwell's lawyer was also allowed to chime in, although the questions were directed at Maxwell herself. Ms. Maxwell never admitted any illegality. Never showed any compassion for her hundreds of victims. Never implicated Epstein in a criminal act. And when she does mention an Epstein victim, it is to castigate former Mar-a-Lago masseuse Virginia Giuffre who committed suicide this past April. Maxwell never shows an iota of contrition for her ugly crimes. And also remember, Maxwell was convicted of two counts of perjury in 2016. Yet here she is allowed to converse with Deputy Attorney General and former Trump personal attorney Todd Blanche. The Club Fed transfer is probably an initial step before receiving a Trump presidential pardon or sentence commutation.

Donald Trump has never explained any of this. It just IS and everyone is supposed to either accept it or ignore it.

Back to the OP. There are other American cities with higher crime rates than Chicago. Houston has the highest crime rate of the 10 most populous US cities.

"Everything's bigger in Texas." But Trump won't dispatch US troops to "patrol" in pal Governor Gregg Abbott's red state of Texas.

This is all a sham.