Illinois Criminal and DUI Arrest Numbers Update

It's not because less people are committing crimes. It's not because there's no smoking in bars. It's not because ride-sharing is available. There has been an ongoing downward slide in enforcement of criminal and DUI laws in Illinois, and in particular in Chicago for decades this slide shows no signs of letting up. It's been a few years since we examined the data, and we last did in 2016, so let's walk through it together. The unavoidable conclusion is that in a long term trend, criminal and DUI arrests in Illinois ·and specifically in Chicago) are continuing to drop. 

DUI statistics are a great place to start, as it's one of the most common crimes across America, and is often well documented and tracked across agencies and reported to a greater degree than other common crimes like retail theft or domestic violence. To state it simply, the data is more easily accessible.

Total DUI arrests by the Illinois State Police went from 10,734 in 2010 to 4,233 in 2023. Chicago Police DUI arrests dropped from 3,695 in 2010 down to 2,445 in 2023. The data isn't available yet, but we believe those numbers dipped further in 2024 as well based on our internal data. You can find Illinois DUI arrest numbers reported here by AAIM using their annual survey. 

Lest one think for a moment "DUI is cured!" or "thank goodness for Uber and Lyft!", here are the totals for all Chicago Police Department arrests for criminal offenses (which includes DUI among other arrests for misdemeanor and felony offenses) Chicago Police for the same years: 167,541 in 2010 vs 47,549 in 2023. You can find the CPD statistics here on page 144. 

Here is a sampling of other DUI arrest data for various police departments in Cook, Lake and DuPage counties that we found for the same period: