Our Recommendations

The current police contracts with the City of Chicago harm accountability by making it hard to complain about police misconduct, easy for officers to lie, and hard to investigate claims of misconduct. These contracts must be reformed. We call on the Mayor’s office to negotiate a contract with our recommended fourteen changes, and on aldermen to refuse a contract without these changes:

1. Eliminate the requirement of a sworn affidavit for investigating civilian complaints of misconduct.
2. Allow for the filing and investigation of anonymous complaints.
3. Prevent the disclosure of a complainant’s name prior to the interrogation of an accused officer.
4. Remove the ban on offering rewards to officers that cooperate or provide information on ongoing investigations.
5. Eliminate the 24 hour delay on officer statements in shooting cases and create a clearly outlined process to receive statements from all officers involved in a timely manner.
6. Eliminate officer’s right to review and amend statements previously made to investigators.
7. Allow past disciplinary records to be used in investigating and resolving present complaints.
8. Eliminate the provision requiring the destruction of police misconduct records.
9. Eliminate the need for the Superintendent’s authorization to investigate complaints that are five years old or older.
10. Remove constraints on how interrogators can ask questions.
11. Specify that information provided to officers prior to interrogations should be a general recitation of allegations.
12. Allow for the disclosure of the identities of officers who are the subject of civilian complaints.
13. Require officers to disclose secondary employment and any other pertinent information that may cause a conflict of interest in performing their duties as a sworn officer.
14. Reduce years of seniority for officers who have been repeatedly recommended for suspension because of findings of complaints filed against them.

READ MORE

Endorse Our Recommendations

The Coalition for Police Contracts Accountability calls on Mayor Emanuel to publicly commit to negotiating for our recommendations immediately. We also call on Aldermen to vote no on any proposed contract that doesn’t include these changes.

As a statement of solidarity, we ask that you or your organization sign on as an endorser of these recommendations and stand with community leaders, organizations, and civil rights and policy advocates working to ensure that police officers are held accountable to the communities that they have sworn to serve and protect.