The term “police consent decree” may sound legalistic, but in fact, peace in our neighborhoods, racial justice, responsible policing, care for the mentally ill and even human lives hang on the many codicils of the legal contract between the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.
Never forget: The binding agreement, by which the city pledged to clean up its police force in 799 paragraphs of minute detail, became necessary after the police murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014. A U.S. Justice Department investigation ultimately found a pattern and practice of racially biased, rogue policing that presented a clear and present danger to residents of the city — especially people of color in South and West Side neighborhoods.
Given that background, how strange it is that Mayor Brandon Johnson — who fashions himself as a progressive defender of the disenfranchised in Chicago — has short-staffed the already too-small Chicago Police Department unit assigned to bring the city into compliance with the decree.
In Johnson’s proposed $17.3 billion city budget for 2025, the funds allocated to implementing the decree are so inadequate that state Attorney General Kwame Raoul needed to warn Johnson the state would sue for contempt of court in order to force adequate funding, if needed.
‘This kid had an impact on people’: The troubled life and fleeting potential of Laquan McDonald
Johnson’s proposal would cut staffing in the Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform by nearly 60%, from 65 positions to 28. That’s down from around 450 CPD positions focused on police reform just two years ago.
The reduction of only about three dozen positions next year would save barely a rounding error against the nearly $1 billion city budget deficit Johnson faces — or the proposed $2.1 billion CPD budget, for that matter.
And Johnson’s proposed staff cuts are particularly perplexing given that, at long last, the city has a police superintendent who seems devoted to building momentum toward the structural reforms required in the decree.
Seems devoted, I say, because Superintendent Larry Snelling’s strong rhetoric on the matter — including at a City Council budget hearing last week — is not yet matched by progress toward the goal of full compliance. The court-appointed monitor of CPD’s progress on the consent decree, Maggie Hickey, reported this week that CPD is in compliance with only 9% of the decree’s measurable mandated reforms. It has taken nearly six years to reach this point, since a federal judge approved the settlement in early 2019.
The false economies baked into Johnson’s ill-considered cost cuts are especially glaring when we compare the minuscule proposed savings to the big-dollar costs of police misconduct. Racially bigoted and undisciplined policing is the root cause of some $80 million paid out in 2023 to settle police misconduct cases alone. Such behavior also damages public trust in the police and costs lives in some instances — costs that are incalculable in dollar terms but inarguable nonetheless.
There is a school of thought that consent decrees cost a lot, yet do little to help reform policing problems for big cities. And despite his proposed staffing cuts, Johnson has allocated a large sum — $195 million — for CPD compliance efforts next year. Former mayoral contender Paul Vallas, who ran as a pro-cop candidate and now is an adviser to the conservative Illinois Policy Institute, argued as much in a Tribune op-ed this week.
But a track record of effective structural reforms in Los Angeles, Seattle, New Orleans, Baltimore and other cities offers evidence that compliance with consent decrees does lead to meaningful improvements in policing and public safety.
Of those cities, all but Baltimore took at least a decade to reach full compliance with their decrees. The slow pace of reform in Chicago puts the city at risk of taking well more than that. To many, the fact that it took an act of the City Council last summer — an ordinance pushed by Ald. Matt Martin, 47th — to initiate a study of police deployment required under the decree — bespeaks a lack of commitment throughout CPD, and by Johnson, to getting this work done.
Done right, police reform can save cities more than it costs. And public support for the spending will grow as the public sees tangible benefit from the reform measures.
Jens Ludwig, director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, which is helping CPD develop a system that identifies cops likely to engage in misconduct, co-wrote a research paper that argues reforms can produce net cost savings. In an interview, Ludwig pointed out that better training, preventive tracking of police disciplinary records and other measures can lead to a reduction in CPD misconduct settlements, which is a major chunk of the savings but not the whole story.
The accused officer is limited to desk duty as investigative and disciplinary processes play out, and their replacement likely must be paid overtime. Injuries or death to the public and police can occur as a result of bad policing, adding additional monetary and human costs. If money spent on better training and tracking of police behavior eliminates such costs, it more than pays for itself.
CPD is moving to cut its implementation costs, in any event. The city late Wednesday announced philanthropic foundations are stepping up to fund initiatives aimed at key parts of the decree: development of a community policing strategy, of an integrated workforce model for CPD and of improvements to the emergency 911 system designed to reduce racial disparities in the outcome of emergency police calls.
The money ultimately will be there. Now if only CPD can heighten its sense of urgency for getting the reform work done.
Snelling has highlighted the need for a community policing strategy since he became superintendent more than a year ago. But another year is expected to pass before the Civic Consulting Alliance and 21CP Solutions, a firm led by former CPD Deputy Superintendent Charles Ramsey, deliver an implementation plan. Only then can the community policing reform begin in earnest.
With that help, Chicago’s effort to comply with the consent decree may begin making better progress. And Raoul and the mayor’s growing caucus of critics in the City Council are right to criticize Johnsons’ push to understaff the effort — a false economy the city can ill afford.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
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