Arrest Falloff?

From the comments:

• all of "us" warriors are down 1200 arrests this month compared to this month last year.

That's quite a drop for a single month. Anyone have the monthly breakdown for 2008 and compared to 2009? We're imagining the drop off has as much to do with all the beat cars not having a lot of time for arresting as it does with an actual cessation of proactive police work.

But don't worry! Help is on the way - in about a year or two:

• Chicago is applying for $106 million in federal-stimulus grants to hire 400 new police officers, even though there’s a costly string attached: When the three-year grants expire, the officers must remain on the city payroll for at least another year.

No worries on the "remain[ing] on the city payroll" once the three years are up. At the rate of retirements, we'll be short those 400 three or four times over by 2012.