Report

As part of the development and negotiation of the consent decree that Chicago entered in 2017, the Illinois Attorney General’s Office gathered input from the community and CPD officers into key topics and areas of focus and potential solutions that could be mandated by the consent decree to reach sustainable reform for constitutional policing in Chicago. In order to collect the data, the National Policing Institute (PF) facilitated 13 focus groups of randomly selected sworn CPD officers and provided a virtual comment box for officers who did not want to participate in the focus groups or were not selected to do so. The officers were asked what the biggest challenges were that they faced in their job, and what the consent decree could do to address those challenges, support officer safety, and improve service to the community. The PF team then coded the responses into broader topics. The topics that received the most votes were “lack of support,” “accountability,” and “training.” During the focus groups, it was observed that officers displayed care for the city and its citizens, were engaged in the discussion, showed physical signs of stress, and seemed to lack fact-based knowledge and understanding of the topics discussed.