Chicago is the most corrupt city in the United States, while Illinois is third in the ranking of states with the highest number of prosecutions of corrupt officials, according to a study by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).
The work published this week was carried out by three professors from the Department of Political Science, who studied figures compiled by the Department of Justice.
The statistics indicate that during 2017 there were 25 prosecutions for public corruption in Chicago, a figure lower than the 30 registered in 2016, and an average of 33.6 per year in the last decade.
However, if one takes into account the figures from 1976 to 2019, in the last 43 years Chicago has retained the scepter of the most corrupt, with 1,731 public officials declared guilty.
Among the most noteworthy cases of 2017 is the imprisonment of the former Executive Director of the Chicago Public Schools Barbara Byrd Bennett for receiving bribes to approve contracts that benefited a former employer.
It is followed by Los Angeles (1,534 cases), New York, Manhattan District (1,327), Miami (1,165) and the District of Columbia, Washington (1,159).
These five districts account for the largest number of people prosecuted for public corruption in the 93 federal judicial districts of the country.
Considering corruption cases per person, Illinois had 34 prosecuted in 2017 and became the third most corrupt state in the country, the study adds.
He points out that although California, Texas, Florida and New York each have more cases of corruption than Illinois, their populations are higher and therefore they are located lower in the ranking, on a per capita basis. (EFEUSA) .-
