Candidate Answers: Changes to CPD

DOROTHY BROWN: 

The President’s Commission noted that all police operations and administration should be guided by the principles of community relations. 

“Community relations are not exclusively a matter of special programs, but a matter that touches on all aspects of police work.  They must play a part in the selection, training, deployment, and promotion of personnel, in the execution of field procedures, in staff policymaking and planning, in the enforcement of departmental discipline, and in the handling of citizen’s complaints.” 

Lastly, the President’s Commission emphasized the role of changing attitudes among police officers as a necessary step to improving community relations, 

“Improving community relations involves not only instituting programs and changing procedures and practices, but re-examining fundamental attitudes.  The police will have to learn to listen patiently and understandingly to people who are openly critical of them or hostile to them, since those people are precisely the ones with whom relations need to be improved.” 

These principles are as valid today as they were in 1967.  As Mayor, I will work with CPD to re-engage officers and residents with the principles and practices of community policing.  In addition to community policing, I will have a complete analysis of the CPD from the top to the bottom, looking at its organizational structure, managerial techniques, number of districts, number of supervisors to patrolmen, and the investigation techniques to ensure they are using 21st century policing strategies.

GERY CHICO:

Additional community input is needed on CPD. At the very least greater steps must be taken to fire any officer who disables a recording device.

AMARA ENYIA:

We would also implement changes in the city’s officer recruitment policy, so as to ensure that only those applicants with integrity, a respect for local communities, and an understanding of and willingness to change the long-standing culture of abuse, torture, racial discrimination, and disrespect would be admitted. Community policing would be another priority, with officers being encouraged to get to know local community members. New recruits in particular must be provided ample opportunities to familiarize themselves with the locals they will be serving, so as to decrease any hidden discomfort or aversions.

LA SHAWN FORD:

I believe that city residents need a sense of safety in every home, every street, and at all times. To achieve this, I believe we need to stem the gun trade through Federal collaboration that will pressure surrounding states to enact more protective gun laws. But ultimately, to reduce overall violence, I believe we need to create more trust and partnerships throughout our city. We need our communities to have a stronger sense of trust in the city itself and in all city employees.

On multiple levels, we need to think much more broadly in the city about our approaches to justice. We cannot see the solution to the problem as simply more enforcement or more legislation. That results in more people being jailed, more families disrupted, and more people who return to the community with a criminal record.

Like the War on Drugs, simply making harsher penalties for gun-related offenses will only result in more poor residents being placed behind bars without addressing any of the root causes of why people are carrying a gun in the first place. Many young people in our neighborhoods carry a gun because they fear and don’t trust that the police will protect them. They feel they need to take matters into their own hands by carrying a gun.

We need to do everything we can to better understand who would benefit from diversion programs, and do our best to divert those who commit a weapons offense into these programs. We need to connect offenders with resources that will place them on a better path. Addressing our violence issues will not be easily fixed by any one approach. Building trust of residents in city employees will require a lot of work.

We need transformative relations between the police and the community, unlike any other city in the country. We need to untangle the history of oppression and find restorative solutions. All stakeholders need to be part of the conversation, and in restorative ways, including the Fraternal Order of the Police and those community members who have committed crimes or otherwise who are likely to get caught up in the criminal justice system. There must be consensus across stakeholders, and a recognition that the current path is bad for both the Chicago police and the communities they serve.

In other words, we have long been faced with severe tensions. We need our police to act more like partners, like real community members. There needs to be new forms of accountability for those police officers get caught up on the wrong side of brutal and ineffective culture. I believe I have realistic optimism and connections with diverse groups and the faith that different groups can get together for some hard and serious conversations and negotiations to make everyone feel safer, build a collective trust, and reduce all forms of crime. The consent decree will help, particularly if strengthened. We will need many more restorative steps beyond those currently specified.

JOHN KOZLAR:

60/40 Plan - There is a major tension between our communities and our police department. This tension only benefits criminals. To build the trust between our communities and police, this policy will be enacted: In order to police in a given district, 60% of the police have to live in the District. By living in the district, police will be seen not as outsiders, but instead as community members who know the residents, who will be raising a family within the district (thereby wanting their neighborhood to be a safe environment for all), and who will be investing in the district. No other candidate has this idea.

LORI LIGHTFOOT:

GARRY McCARTHY:

I want the Chicago Police Department to reinstate the Strategic Policing Strategy that I implemented as Superintendent. That crime reduction strategy resulted in a 37% drop in crime, the lowest murder rates in our city since 1965, and a dramatic reduction of complaints against officers as well as police-related shootings. Moreover, we reprioritized the department’s enforcement strategies to cut mass incarceration. That policy shift helped CPD increase gun arrests while cutting the volume of overall arrests. It came as no surprise that the majority of our policing strategy was used to craft President Obama’s final report on 21st Century Policing.

However, as long as the Chicago Police Department is politicized and micromanaged by City Hall, I believe it is more critical that we implement judicial oversight over the City Council, where more than one-third of all aldermen have been indicted and/or convicted of serious crimes since 1972 and hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal campaign contributions have been exposed. I am calling for a consent decree between the Chicago City Council and the citizens of the City of Chicago that provides guidelines on TIF spending, which has been heretofore executed illegally and government bonds, which have been issued so irresponsibly it may rise to the level of criminal breach of fiduciary duty. I am seriously concerned by City Council’s and the mayor’s corporate counsel’s process for police shooting settlements. I know these settlements are political and perhaps illegal. It has to stop. Purported agreements between City Hall and CPS where Chicago City government would not investigate sexual abuse cases of CPS students but allow CPS to conduct internal investigations are so egregious that we can no longer simply send officials to jail; obviously, this does not work. We need citizen’s insight into and court oversight over the work aldermen do at city hall, in their ward offices, and at their fundraising events.

SUSANA MENDOZA:

I would begin by fully implementing the consent decree, including the reforms to implement crisis intervention training, expand community policing, and develop an early warning system for problem officers. I also want to expand diversion programs that allow officers to focus on violent individuals and take a balanced approach to reforming police disciplinary procedures.

TONI PRECKWINKLE:

PAUL VALLAS: 

My public safety plan includes staffing police with enough resources and supervision (sergeants and training officers) to ensure that there is beat integrity, which is critical to effective community policing, and effective personnel oversight and management, which is critical to accountability. My plan also calls for expanded training to address all the deficiency areas identified in the consent decree and to ensure that training is redundant, which is critical to training effectiveness. A special focus of this training will be de-escalation and CIT (Crisis Intervention Training) training when officers encounter individuals who have mental health illnesses. A part of my plan is also to re-open mental health centers and to ensure that there is a community mental health center in every police district and that those centers work with the police department on not only training, but to provide support. My plan also includes ensuring that there is comprehensive and redundant training, as mandated by the consent decree.  Further, properly supplying officers with non-lethal resources such as TASERs and ensuring that police officers have working radios and cameras.  This will additionally contribute to positive change. My plan also includes creating a pipeline so that the next generation of police officers come from the community by partnering with the high school ROTC programs and military high schools. Those schools annually serve a population of 9,000 students, 90% of whom are Black and Latino. I intend that the next generation of all first responders be drawn in large part from the community through those programs. I will also review use of and criteria for the current CPD gang database.