Statement on Changes to Chicago Investigatory Stop Report

Yesterday, the Chicago Police Department announced a new simplified Investigative Stops Report (ISR) that officers will use on the streets beginning on March 1. ISR is the paperwork completed by a CPD officer at the conclusion of a Terry stop, often referred to as stop-and-frisk. Last August, the ACLU of Illinois reached a landmark agreement with the CPD and the City of Chicago to begin tracking and collecting more precise data about such events. That agreement was augmented in January by a new state law requiring the collection of additional information when police stop and search individuals on the streets all across Illinois.

The modifications to the ISR announced by CPD yesterday are modest and in no way impact the data required under state law or our agreement with the City and CPD. The changes consist of the following:

1. Two pieces of information that CPD had wanted to collect – whether a car was “curbed” as part of a stop and whether someone was handcuffed – were eliminated from the form; and
2. Three separate narrative spaces were combined into one.

As a result, the form has been reduced in length from 2 pages to 1-1/2 pages.
Officers are still required to collect the most critical information about street stops – namely, who conducts the stop, who is stopped, why the individual was stopped, whether the person was searched and why, what (if anything) was found and what was the outcome of the encounter. This information is necessary to insure that street stops are consistent with applicable law and the U.S. Constitution. And assuring that all such stops are lawful remains the focus of the ACLU of Illinois.

• Read the ACLU report: Stop and Frisk in Chicago
• Learn about the ACLU agreement with the Chicago Police Department to reform stop and frisk
• Read our statement on the on the so-called “ACLU effect” on Chicago's crime spike