CRIME, reducing violence in Maywood

Last night I attended the Maywood village board meeting. Many residents spoke about the recent spate of shootings in Mayhood. Everybody, especially the elected officials, seemed upset about the violence.

But I’m going to risk annoying some people by criticizing ideas that seemed to be popular at the village board meeting last night.

The ideas that concern me are:

1. Everyone is responsible for the problem.
2. Maywood needs to pull together.
3. Demanding better results from the Police Department constitutes a solution.

Maywood has a climate that makes violence more likely to happen. Maywood can’t fix the institutional racism in the United States, but there are specific policies that can be implemented locally.

However, it’s completely wrong to suggest everyone is equally responsible for the problem. Communities with high levels of street crime have police departments that are corrupt and turning a blind eye. Crooked cops and crooked politicians go hand-in-hand. For organized crime to buy-off the cops, a community needs politicians that are in on the game.

Proviso Township—especially Melrose Park, Maywood and Bellwood—has a history of political organizations that use criminal activity for power and enrichment. The police departments—including Memorial Park District—are seeded with political appointees that are there to look after the allies of their political patrons, including drug dealers, pimps and gambling houses.

Organized crime—mostly in the form of political organizations—bears most of the responsibility for the climate that has led to so many shootings. The responsibility of the average voter is that s/he doesn’t vote for change at election time.

Let’s be honest. The scam run by the political bosses isn’t a secret. It’s pretty open which political organizations are allied with drug dealers. If the political boss did legal work for drug dealers, that’s suspicious. If they politician was busted for drug dealing, that’s suspicious. If the politician has immediate family members that are known drug dealers, that’s suspicious.

The price of reducing violent crime in Maywood is for average voters to open their eyes and to vote out the politicians that use criminal tactics and are allied with organized crime. If Maywood voters don’t have the courage to oust the criminal politicians, don’t whine about crime in the community. If you vote for criminals, you will get crime.

So, Maywood doesn’t need to pull together. It needs to recognize that there is a line between people who are playing by the rules and people that are manipulating the system for personal power. Regular citizens need to get on the “by the rules” side and reject the scammers, con men, criminals and thugs on the other side.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Many regular citizens like to get the perks of being connected to political-criminal organizations. The connected don’t have to get village stickers for their cars. They get better government services. They get jobs from the government.

Regular citizens want the violence to stop, but are they willing to sacrifice the little perks of doing things the old-school way?

Finally, demanding more from the police department only works in the short-term. It’s not a policy that can be implemented over time. If Maywood wants to implement a new policing strategy, it needs to have a new policing strategy. Demanding more isn’t a strategy.