Levels of Dissatisfaction Remains Between CPD and Community Despite Consent Decree
Many Chicago residents remain dissatisfied with the Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) and are skeptical of the reform efforts, according to recent survey results from the coalition of groups monitoring the progress of a consent decree entered between the reform advocacy groups and the city’s police department in 2019. A consent decree is a legally binding agreement between parties in a legal dispute and in this case a law enforcement agency and an oversight body that seeks to reform the agency after there have been credible accusations or findings of unlawful/unconstitutional policing practices in the department. A 2024 survey found that only 33% of Chicago residents said they felt that CPD were doing a “good” or “very good” job protecting the city. In addition, according to monitors of the decree, only 9% of the court order’s requirements had been met in the nearly 6 years since it was entered, with the city budgeting $667 million to implement the decree since 2020. Perhaps as a result of this slow progress, only 27% of respondents in the recent survey said they were “confident” or “very confident” in the reform efforts having a long and lasting impact on the police department. But United States District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, who is overseeing the consent decree in federal court, noted that these results showed a marked improvement from the previous survey conducted in 2022 during the most recent status hearing regarding the decree, even as the monitors noted that the results noted the survey shows that there still remains “need for improvement.”
CPD Stop and Search Policy Under Scrutiny from Watchdog Organizations
A proposed change to the Chicago Police Departments policy related to when an officer can perform a stop and search of an individual has come under scrutiny by several reform groups behind the consent decree with the city’s police department. The new policy, which was proposed December 31, would prohibit officers from conducting investigatory stops or protective pat-downs “based solely on a person’s race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status, homeless status, marital status, parental status, military discharge status, financial status, or lawful source of income, without any other specific and articulable facts that the person is, has, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.” But reform groups say that the policy would impermissibly allow an officer to consider an individual’s race or ethnicity to some degree, which runs afoul of an individual’s constitutional rights. In a letter to Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer the coalition seeking reform alleges that the new policy, “paradoxically suggests that race and other protected characteristics are grounds to investigate someone, as long as the officer can also articulate other additional suspicious facts.” In addition, the coalition took issue with the new policy because it still allows officers to, “search people based on the odor of raw cannabis/marijuana,” despite the order forbidding that under the terms of the consent decree the department had already agreed to. The group asked the Court to give CPD until April 26 to revise their policy and align it with their desires before asking the Judge to force any changes on the CPD at that date. Advocates in their reports noted the marked disparity between racial groups for their rates of interactions with CPD officers, with African Americans nine times more likely to be stopped by officers than white individuals, and three times more likely for Latinos than whites. There will always remain instances in which officers will need to conduct searches of individuals or their property, whether they be on the street, in their vehicles, or in their homes, but there needs to be clear policies setting expectations for officers to make sure they do not engage in a pattern of violating an individual’s constitutional rights to be free from overzealous policing. If you believe that you have had your civil rights violated in any way, make sure to contact an experienced attorney who can fight to seek recourse for violations of your constitutional rights and hopefully prevent them from happening to others in the future.
