Southwest Women Working Together, a social-service organization on the Southwest Side of Chicago, is collecting police information on domestic-violence cases in the 8th District (Chicago Lawn) so it can get a better idea of the scope of the problem in the community, says Andrea Laiacona, a community organizer for the 21-year-old volunteer organization.
“Our original intention was to find ways to improve police response to domestic violence, but we found that none of the districts track domestic violence calls; so we had to back up and find the numbers,” Laiacona says. “The department tracks the number of bicycle thefts, but they don’t track the number of domestic-violence incidents.”
The group examined domestic-violence cases that occurred between July 1995 and March 1996 and found that there were 494 arrests on 1,581 calls, Laiacona says.
“Thirty-one percent of the calls resulted in arrests,” she says. “We know that San Diego saw a one-third arrest rate and decided the rate was low,” she says. “Now it’s up to two-thirds.
“We would like to see the arrest rate climb in Chicago.”
