Saturday, Oct. 6 became the first time in 50 years a member of the Chicago Police Department was convicted of an on-duty murder. When the last arrest occurred, the United States was at war with Vietnam, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was still alive and the U.S. had yet to land on the moon.

Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder for the 2014 slaying of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. McDonald was shot 16 times by Van Dyke, which led to 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.

The long gap between police convictions is not because the Chicago Police Department have run a clean or even successful organization since then. From 2010 to 2014, 70 people were fatally shot by Chicago police, the most of any city during this time span.

These numbers are hard to excuse, as they have come without real results. Chicago recently had one of its deadliest years in recent memory. In 2016, 762 people were killed, the most since the 1990s. Throughout the first half of 2018, the Chicago PD has solved less than one-sixth of the cities’ homicide cases, according to USA Today.

These shocking statistics showcase to a tee the real problem in Chicago. Policing in Chicago has been poor, at best, for a long time. The state of policing has a direct correlation with crime, as lazy officers easily make way for a rise in violent crime. Crimes will likely continue to rise without a change to something in the system, and the most obvious solution is making it clear that actions do not come without consequence, on both sides of the fight.

The conviction of officer Van Dyke is a step in the right direction for police across the country. For change to truly happen in both Chicago and across America, more convictions must be made when an officer is guilty. No longer should there be days of paid leaves, layoffs or firings, but actual convictions, as is the case with any citizen in America.

Crime cannot be stopped with weak policing, but holding police officers to the same standards as the people they protect will not only keep officers honest, it will create better policing in the long-run, in the eyes of the law as well as the safety of the citizens. A strong, and credible, police force can only help the shockingly high crime rates.

A murder by a police officer is no different than one from a citizen, so why should they be held to any less accountability? How are laws expected to be followed when the people enforcing the laws don’t even follow them?