The War on Drugs in Chicago: Thinking Locally, Acting Globally

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Abstract: With a population of 2.9 million people, Chicago is the third largest city in the Unites States. Located in America’s heartland, Chicago is one of the nation’s most important transportation centers and home to one of the world’s busiest airports: O’ Hare International. A total of seven interstate highways run through the city; each day, thousands of trucks flow into Chicago’s 200 truck terminals. Chicago is also known for its ethnic diversity. Less than 50 percent of the city’s residents are Caucasians; the rest are African Americans, Hispanics (primarily of Mexican origin) and a growing South Asian population (the third largest in the United States after New York and San Francisco). Chicago’s greater metropolitan area, known as Chicagoland, boasts a population of between 8 and 10 million people.

Chicago’s reputation for crime and corruption has been longstanding. Whether deserved or not, Al Capone’s legacy has been hard to shed. During the past 30 years, Chicago, like many other American cities, experienced a major rise in violent crime, which has gradually been declining since the mid-1990s. Last year (2005), Chicago recorded 448 homicides, the lowest total in 40 years. Still, the city’s location makes it a hub for the drug trade and an uninterrupted supply of opiates from four global sources: Mexico, South America, Southeast Asia and Southwest Asia. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), drugs are trafficked into the city by commercial trucks, package delivery services, couriers, railways and cars (DEA, 2005).

This paper traces Chicago’s drug problem from the mid-1970s to the present, examines the scope and nature of the city’s current drug problem, and describes, in detail, the prevailing strategies and tactics deployed by law enforcement agencies to reduce the supply and demand for drugs. Because of the global nature of drug trafficking, attention is also paid to ongoing efforts to disrupt the production and trafficking of drugs destined for Chicago. This conference paper was published as Chapter 4 in: “Strategic Responses to Crime: Thinking Locally, Acting Globally,” Dilip de Guzman , Melchor Das and Aiedeo Mintie Das (eds), CRC Press 2012, Boca Raton, Florida, p71–94.

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