Tipsheet

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Says We Can't Just Arrest Our Way to Public Safety. Yes We Can

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  May 26, 2026 1:30 PM

Chicago is being shredded online after claiming Tuesday that it is foolish for people to think that “we can arrest our way to safety,” as the city continues to be plagued by a series of “teen takeovers.” The incidents, which involve large groups of adolescents flooding streets and public areas at night, have caused safety concerns, raised serious safety concerns, and in some cases have even led to fatal shootings.

"We believe that we can arrest our way towards safety," the mayor of Chicago said. "We're wrong. We ask police officers to do too much. At some point, adults have to work hard to help raise their children. And that's what we're calling for in this moment."

Mayor Johnson, unfortunately, isn’t entirely correct, especially when it comes to the immediate response needed to address the problem. While mass arrests may not solve the root cause of these incidents, that doesn’t mean they aren’t a necessary first step. If people break the law, there must be consequences for their actions. 

There are broader issues that can and should be addressed, strengthening families, improving education, and ensuring parents take responsibility for their children, but those are long-term solutions, not immediate ones. The citizens of Chicago, along with residents of other major cities dealing with these teen takeovers, deserve at the very least a basic sense of law and order, even if it doesn’t fully solve the underlying problem.

More broadly, Democrats have made it a hallmark of their politics to avoid enforcing certain laws out of a sense of compassion, and in some cases, as with Johnson, by arguing that enforcement does not address the root of the problem. Their approach has not only spectacularly failed to provide any real solutions, but has done more to endanger the people they represent, and is increasingly being recognized by many as plainly misguided. 

This comes as cities across the country have been forced to deal with similar “teen takeovers,” including in Washington, D.C., where U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced just weeks ago that the parents of children involved would also face prosecution. 

Unlike Mayor Johnson, it’s a more practical two-fold approach, focusing on immediate enforcement through arrests while also addressing longer-term issues and incentivizing the decline of parental neglect.