WTTW News Explains
WTTW News Explains: How Does Chicago’s Police Consent Decree Work?
The dash-cam video of the murder of Laquan McDonald captured one of the darkest moments in the 190-year history of the Chicago Police Department.
In response, Mayor Rahm Emanuel promised there would be “no U-turns on the road to reform.” But since city officials inked the 2019 police consent decree agreement, the effort has hit pot hole after pot hole.
The consent decree is a binding court order granting a federal judge oversight of the police department. It was designed to correct the problems outlined by an investigation by the Justice Department – chiefly, that Chicago police were found to have routinely violated Black and Latino residents’ constitutional rights.
While a consent decree can be a powerful tool to reform police departments, it is complicated. Here’s how it is supposed to work:
After the Trump administration washed their hands of the reform effort in 2017, the Illinois Attorney General’s office and a coalition of police reform advocates sued the city to force changes to how the police department operated. That agreement requires the Chicago Police Department to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers.
The department must come up with new policies, which are evaluated by the judge at three levels:
Preliminary compliance means officials have finalized written policies addressing its failures.
Secondary compliance means a majority of officers have been trained on those new policies.
Full compliance means that the department has demonstrated it can follow those rules over a period of time under the judge’s oversight.
Progress is monitored by an independent team of experts on policing and reform appointed by the judge to be their eyes and ears.
Since it was put in place, the consent decree has been expanded three times to address new scandals and allegations of misconduct, and it is set to expand again to include traffic stops.
Originally, city officials had until the end of 2024 to comply with the consent decree’s 552 paragraphs.
It didn’t happen.
Now the consent decree, which has expanded to 714 paragraphs and counting, won’t expire until at least 2027, giving the city more time to fully comply with its requirements and convince the federal judge the problems won’t reoccur.
At the same time, police union leaders say the consent decree has made it tougher for officers to enforce the law and apprehend criminals by imposing a layer of bureaucracy and fear on everything they do.
After making only incremental progress during the years of the consent decree, some are concerned that the opportunity for lasting reform is slipping away. And city officials haven’t yet demanded police brass hit the gas.
The city’s reform push might not have pulled a U-turn, but it is still far from the finish line.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
