HYDE PARK — The University of Chicago Police Department really is extra security above and beyond what the Chicago Police Department provides, according to new statistics released Monday.
The city’s Officer of the Inspector General on Monday released for the first time in years the total number of officers working in each of Chicago’s 22 police districts.
For years, people living on the south lakefront have been in the dark over whether their Wentworth Police District was getting the same number of officers as other districts that don’t share a patrol area with the private University of Chicago force.
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The university employs nearly 100 officers to patrol an area from 37th Street to 64th Street between Lake Shore Drive and Cottage Grove Avenue. That’s entirely within the boundaries of the Wentworth District, which extends father west to the Dan Ryan Expressway and north to 35th Street.
There may be a suspicion that CPD would allow the ranks of officers at the Wentworth District to dwindle knowing the university police would be there to pick up the slack. That does not appear to have happened.
The district has 323 officers, close to the average of 330 officers and is on par with the neighboring Grand Crossing District to the south, which has 321 officers. The South Chicago District further south ranks similarly with 327 officers.
The Wentworth District ranks solidly in the middle of the pack for the number of crimes officers are responding to compared to other districts, though the broad numbers do obscure the severity of the the crimes between districts.
The district is a far cry from the West Side’s Harrison District, which has approximately twice as many police officers per person in the district. The Town Hall District, which covers Lake View, on the other hand has about half as many police officers per person in the district compared to the Wentworth District.
