Chicago was incorporated in 1837 to the State of Illinois. This ‘Windy City’ is in fact the largest county seat of Cook County. This amazing intermixture city is divided into legislative and executive branches, with the mayor as the chief executive serving a four years term of office. Presently the mayor is Richard M. Daley and as the head of the city, all the commissioners and other officials of the various departments are appointed by him. As for the legislative branch, it’s the City Council which consist of fifty aldermen, each elected from one ward in the city. The city budget and also the local ordinances are enacted by these councils which are adopted in the month of November.

Chicago is also a stronghold of the democrats, suggested clearly by the fact that presently there is only one alderman republican. The last republican mayor was in 1927. Besides, another notable feature in the politics of Chicago is its reputation of corruption in many of its government office; one of them is the Hired Trucking Scandal. Also Chicago’s politics as compared to the Midwest, lean more towards the leftist. Social liberalism seem to be a top topic for the majority of Chicagoans; when the mayor rejected the same sex marriage proposal, there arose a hue and cry, reflecting the strong liberal sentiments.            

As regards the law, the main law enforcement is the Chicago Police Department which is under the Mayor’s jurisdiction. It is in fact  the second largest police department in United States, with 25 police districts under a commander who supervise a number of departments like detective forces, patrol officers and many others. Chicago’s crime rate too seem quite high, maybe it’s the outcome of a very large population. Those gangsters problem which started in the 60’s is still very much visible. There’s was an average of 900 murder’s per year till 1992, and only after the incorporation of a new crime fighting technique in 2004, Chicago has recorded around half the usual rate of homicides. Even then its significantly higher than other cities. As an effective measure, Chicago by 1995 has built an integrated emergency response center and various anti crime cameras been installed in residential areas to survey and pinpoint the crime. This has led to a significant fall in the crime rate, although some of the residents are worried about their privacy.

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