It’s like they are coming in full support,” Rogers said. They’re not coming in with this judgmentalattitude or judgmental questioning. are being trained in sexual assault, so they are coming in believing the victim. LaToya Rogers, a YWCA medical advocate who provides support to sexual assault survivors at South Side hospitals, said the #MeToo movement and an improvement in how medical professionals and Chicago police officers treat survivors has motivated many to go to authorities. There were more than 2,000 sexual assaults reported in the city through late December in both 20. While it is hard to gauge how much lifting COVID-19 restrictions, particularly at bars and nightclubs and in social gatherings, contributed to the increase of reported sexual assaults this year, the current citywide numbers appeared to have returned to levels reported before the pandemic. Throughout the city, as of Monday, there were 2,056 reported sexual assaults this year - a 28% increase compared to the same time frame in 2020 when there were 1,612 reported incidents, CPD data shows. As violent crime soars in Chicago, ‘safety gap’ among neighborhoods widens.Downtown shootings up 220%, biggest spike in city: ‘People are fed up’.The Chicago Lawn district recorded 133 incidents in 2021, up from 126 last year and the South Chicago district saw 117 reports, up from 93 in 2020. Still, those numbers are relatively low compared to other parts of the city. Likewise, the Shakespeare district, which includes parts of Logan Square, Wicker Park and Bucktown, saw a 103% increase, from 36 to 73. The Jefferson Park district saw the largest percentage increase, with a 121% jump in reports through Sunday, from 33 sexual assaults in 2020 to 73 this year. Nineteen of the city’s 22 police districts saw an increase in sexual assault reports this year compared to 2020. Assaults increased in nearly every district In those cases, officers only listed the hospital’s address in Streeterville, in the Near North district, in their reports. In addition, the exact location of some of the assaults is unclear since more than a third of the survivors talked to police at Northwestern Medicine without giving a specific location of where the rapes occurred. While police and advocates don’t directly blame the large number of bars and nightclubs in the area for the spike in reports, they note alcohol or drugs often play a role in the incidents. Through Sunday, there were 151 sexual assaults reported this year - a more than 95% increase over last year and the most in two decades in the district.
In 2020, there were 77 sexual assaults reported in the Near North district, according to the CPD’s CompStat figures.