The actions by Chicago Police Officer Anthony Abbate sure seem to be the actions of someone the public would prefer not to be roaming free on the streets. The video of this beating was aired internationally as evidence of the violent culture of Chicago police specifically and America generally. The public was shocked and surprised on Tuesday when Abbate received a sentence of only two years probation from Cook County Circuit Court Judge John J. Fleming. Greater public access to information from the criminal justice system would allow us to see how this individual ruling compares to Judge Fleming’s prior rulings for aggravated battery.

Access is so limited that we cannot even efficiently compare how Judge Fleming, or any other judge at 26th Street, handles cases of aggravated battery to compare sentences between the cases. Residents of the various communities of color throughout Chicago are not surprised that a white male officer only received probation for the drunken beating of a defenseless woman. Had the attacker of this young white woman been a male of color, whether a police officer or not, the likely outcome would have been significantly different. Also, Judge Fleming’s ruling did not surprise advocates for survivors of domestic and sexual violence against women who all to often see perpetrators slapped on the wrist.

Information technologies can be applied to data created by the criminal justice system to enrich public understanding of how the agencies interact with the public. Currently, the technology does exist which would allow citizens to efficiently pull up a judges’ ruling to determine if any sentence is out of line with prior decisions. However, city and county administrators in Chicago and Cook County have made little effort to apply this technology in a manner consistent with a goal of increasing the public’s understanding of how the entire criminal justice system operates.

Legislators and authorities within the criminal justice system must realize that the public interest is greatly served by providing unfettered access to information from our justice system. The application of information technologies can empower communities by allowing unprecedented access that would significantly reduce the mistrust between the city’s communities and the criminal justice system. There is no technological limitation that stands in the way of the criminal justice system allowing the public to track a case from the filing of a complaint through adjudication and when appropriate incarceration, only political limitations.

The decision to apply information technologies and open the criminal justice system to the sunshine it so desperately needs is an easy one. The chorus of ‘thank yous’ from the public at large would drown out the predictable outcry from agents of the system. It is 2009 and still questions about racial disparities, violence against women, and preferential treatment of agents of the system go unanswered because the decision to apply information technologies throughout the entirety of the system has yet to be made. Abbate’s sentence and the public disgust with it should be just the motivation our political leaders and criminal justice officials need to motivate them to open the system to the public.

On June 12th US Representative Mark Kirk, 10th District of Illinois, introduced HR 2848 in the US House of Representatives titled the “High Potency Marihuana Sentencing Enhancement Act of 2009”. This bill increases the penalties for individuals trafficking in high potency marijuana. Kirk’s effort here is to increase the reach of the drug war. Instead, Kirk should be looking at the available evidence from a state that has reduced incarceration while also reducing crime. It is vital that a best practices philosophy be mandated so that policy is made on evidence rather than ideology.

In a recent report titled “Controlling Corrections Costs in Illinois: Lessons from the Coasts” Malcolm Young makes a strong case for legislators to learn from the experiences of both California and New York. Young, Adjunct Professor of Law at Northwestern University School of Law lays out a strong case that common sense approaches to criminal justice issues including sentencing and incarceration can reduce incarceration rates, expenditures on the criminal justice system, and lower crime rates.

Young delineates the different paths to criminal justice policy that have distinguished both California and New York as leaders in this country. California is the unchallenged leader in how “tough on crime” policies and political propaganda can bankrupt a state. New York on the other hand has definitely been led by a steadier hand less influenced by tough on crime propaganda and media spectacles and thus has managed to reduce crime at the same time they are reducing their incarceration rates and increasing diversion programs to keep people from entering the system. The State of New York is even working to significantly restructure or eliminate their harsh mandatory minimum drug laws called the Rockefeller laws that contributed significantly to increasing their prison population in the 1990s.

Facts from Young’s Report:
From 1995-2007 California increased its prison population by 41,111 prisoners or 31.2% and is rate of imprisonment by 31.2% and the state experienced marked reductions in property and violent crime. However, over the same time period, New York has decreased it prison population by 6,307 or 9.2% and its rate of imprisonment by 14.8%. New York experienced a reduction in property and violent crime greater than California’s.
(Young, 2009, p. 2)

Best practices needs to become the standard for how decisions are made throughout the entirety of the criminal justice system, including at the initial stage of policy making by our elected legislators. The sad note on this issue is that I doubt that Kirk or our other legislators, both at the federal and state level, have any true understanding of what the state of New York has been able to accomplish. Amidst all the propaganda during the 90s and the 00s the state has managed to reduce their prison population while also reducing expenditures and violent crime.
Can and should New York go farther, yes. Does New York, like every state in the union need to address massive disproportionate minority representation, yes. Is New York in a much better position to deal with both in 2009 and beyond than California, you bet. Politicians with political agendas rather than the best interests of their constitutions need to start practicing evidence based policy making and stop pandering to the racist hordes.

Here is the text of US Representative Mark Kirk, 10th District of Illinois, HR 2848 titled the “High Potency Marihuana Sentencing Enhancement Act of 2009”.

Section 401(b) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 841(b)) is amended by adding at the end the following:

(8)(A) Unless a higher penalty is otherwise provided in this Act, in the case of a violation of subsection (a) involving high potency marihuana such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 25 years and if death or serious bodily injury result shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 20 years or more than life, a fine not to exceed the greater of that provided in title 18, United States Code, or $1,000,000 if the defendant is an individual or $5,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both. If any person commits such a violation after a prior conviction for a felony drug offense has become final, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 35 years, and if death or serious bodily injury result from the use of such substance shall be sentenced to life imprisonment, a fine not the exceed the greater of that provided in title 18, United States Code, or $2,000,000 if the defendant is an individual or $10,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the court shall not place on probation or suspend the sentence of any person sentenced under the provisions of this subparagraph which provide for a mandatory term of imprisonment.

On Sunday June 14th the Chicago Tribune ran a story by Megan Twohey titled “Police Put Rape Kits on Hold”. Through the use of Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act Twohey examined the rate at which 13 large suburban policing agencies submitted rape kits for testing to the Illinois State Police Crime Lab. Twohey’s examination revealed that a full 40% of the rape kits collected by these agencies were never sent for testing but instead shelved within the department. Individuals within the criminal justice system should not be empowered with the discretion to decide what evidence the crime lab tests and what evidence it does not. This is especially the case when you consider the evidence in question is from a complaint filed for rape, or aggravated criminal sexual assault here in Illinois.

Key points made in Twohey’s article:
Suburban Departments typically do not have a policy that requires that all rape kits be submitted for testing.
The Chicago Police Department and the Will County Sheriff’s Department currently have in place policies that require rape kits be submitted for testing.
Illinois law does not require that rape kits be submitted for testing.

Reason for not submitting rape kits for testing:
If the victim:
Recants the allegations
Doesn’t want to press charges
Is found not to be credible
If the case is not strong
If suspect acknowledges he had sex but says it was consensual
If the State’s Attorney’s Office refuses to prosecute
If the offender left the state
If the youth is in a residential treatment facility in another state

Quotes from Police Officials:
“Part of it is, you want to see where the case is going before you use those resources, how it is going to shake out.”
“adding that police can always pull kits out of storage if they later decide testing could prove valuable”
“Are you going to get a confession? Is there a suspect? Do we want to put things in the pipeline and system without knowing for sure we’re going to need it? If every department sent in every piece of evidence to be examined we’d bring the system to its knees.”
Kurt Bluder, Deputy Chief of Downers Grove Police Department

“His office takes sexual assault seriously but determined it would not win this case because the offender had no criminal history and the victim had been drinking and had initially expressed interest in having sex with the offender.”
“It would be wrong to submit a kit in this case and have {the accused} branded in CODIS” Combined DNA Index System, a database of DNA profiles secured from rape kits and convicted felons.
DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett

Statistics Twohey used in the story:

Schaumburg:
Gathered: 58 Tested: 22 Untested: 36 % untested: 62 %

Evanston:
Gathered: 46 Tested: 17 Untested: 29 % untested: 63 %

Downers Grove:
Gathered: 11 Tested: 3 Untested: 8 % untested: 73 %

Bolingbrook:
Gathered: 16 Tested: 7 Untested: 9 % untested: 56 %

Naperville:
Gathered: 35 Tested: 17 Untested: 15 % untested: 43 %

These statistics represent a system that does not take the crime of sexual assault seriously. It represents a system stuck in a sexist way of approaching a crime that is endemic in our society with the disdain expected 20 years ago. Advocates for survivors of sexual assault have and continue to work very hard to educate the public and criminal justice officials about how sexual assault is not a rare event, but a common event in our society.

More information is needed to better understand the scope and significance of these findings. With the available data, it is impossible to track the race and social status of the individuals in cases where rape kits were sent for testing and those for which the kits were not sent for testing. The data provided in the story clearly details that discretion at both the policing and prosecutorial level is playing a role in when a rape kit gets tested. Citizens of these communities need to have greater insight into what role race and social status play in the decision process.

In 2008 Jody Raphael, a Senior Research Fellow at the Schiller, DuCanto & Fleck Family Law Center at DePaul College of Law, published a report titled “Taking Rape Seriously: Sexual Assault in Cook County”. Raphael’s report only uses data from the Chicago Police Department, but the Chicago data gives a glimpse into how race plays a role into who does or does not get arrested for rape.

A Key Finding:
“It is important to note that according to the Chicago Police Department’s 2005 Annual Report, 71% of defendants arrested for rape were African-American, 23% Hispanic, and 5% White. That the overwhelming majority of these cases found to merit arrest by the Chicago Police Department involve persons of color as both the victims and defendants is startling and raises serious questions,” (Raphael, 2008, pg. 4).

The crime of sexual assault is most often committed by an acquaintance of the victim, 80%, rather than a stranger, 20%. From reading the story and looking at the suburbs examined it is rather easy to take the next step and estimate that the majority of the cases being passed over by these policing agencies are acquaintance rapes involving white middle class men. If law enforcement agencies do not move away from the limited and antiquated perceptions of rape in our communities and homes they will always be lacking in their responsibilities to protect over half our population.

On April 29th Associate Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thomas V. Gainer, Jr. handed down what can only be categorized as a truly incredible ruling. Gainer’s ruling on the Jefferson Tap bar fight involving police officers relies on an implausible interpretation of events, which in reality, constitute hard evidence of the existence of the “blue wall of silence.”

The majority of attention to this case has centered on the fight between off duty members of the Area 4 Gun Team and civilians inside the Jefferson Tap bar. However, the most critical aspect of this case is the additional set of charges of official misconduct and obstruction of justice filed against a single officer, Jeffrey Planey. The charges stem directly from the notion that responding officers failed to take action when arriving at the scene of a hold up alarm call that was down graded to assault in progress including 20 people in a fight because Planey waived the officers off.

The video from outside the bar clearly shows Planey engaging officers and officers not taking action. One officer did actually talk to one of the civilians that were engaged in the events inside the bar but left the scene shortly after talking to the individual. Judge Gainer interprets this action as the officer realizing through this short engagement that the individual was drunk and left the scene because the individual was intoxicated. For Gainer’s interpretation to be valid this type of behavior by Chicago Police of showing up on the scene where 20 men were reported to be in a fight, including officers, and leaving because one of those in the fight was intoxicated must be routine and appropriate. Can this be true? If it is then the reality of how our communities are policed is worse then even I believed.

The decision quotes testimony from responding officers who say they were never ordered to leave the scene by Planey, but they left the scene none-the-less. What is completely absent is any evidence that there was not an active conspiracy to engage in obstruction of justice that night by all the officers involved. If everyone engaged in an act has the requisite knowledge of what is happening and actively participates in the act then a conspiracy is what you have. This is really the most troubling aspect of the entire case, responding officers arrived at a scene were reports of an active fight were reported including 20 people, some of which were officers, and only one officer got out of the car to investigate at all. As a result of one individual involved being intoxicated the entire investigation into the fight was halted. The intoxicated individual was not even the person who sounded the silent alarm seeking police response.

Chicago’s history is replete with examples of preferential treatment given to officers who abuse the public, break the law, and wreak havoc in communities of color throughout Chicago. There is little doubt in my mind that had the officers been on the losing side of this interaction that the ruling about the seriousness of the fight would have been different. We will never know exactly what happened in the bar that night and what caused the violence to start and continue. What we have overwhelming evidence of is that responding officers left the scene after responding to a report of 20 people fighting with almost no investigation. They did so because an officer or officers were involved and they did not want to have an investigation. The trial judge somehow interpreted this as honest police work while serving and protecting the community from violence. This ruling does not stand any litmus test of being grounded in reality. The consequences of this ruling are serious and citizens of Chicago need to be aware that if you are assaulted by an off duty officer calling 911, or pressing a holdup button, will not bring help if the officer involved waives his hands. A secondary consequence is that Gainer communicated to other officers that there is no criminal liability for leaving the scene of a violent fight if an officer is involved as long as he does not order you to leave. Leaving on your own is entirely appropriate.

The Illinois Freedom of Information Act is woefully outdated and geared towards empowering bureaucrats to withhold information from the public. The State legislature created the law as a mechanism to provide citizens with access to information about how the government serves the public. In practice, the Act has provided little access as government agencies have disregarded both the spirit and letter of the Act.

The current bill in the Illinois House of Representatives corrects some of the law’s existing flaws. However, the bill still reflects a 20th century approach to a 21st century problem of how government can and should use the Internet and information technologies to assist their work and their ability to release information to the public. The current rewrite that has been put forward by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan still lacks the necessary embrace of 21st century technologies. The old law does not need adjustment, it needs to be thrown out and a new law needs to be drafted with a concentration on how current and future technology can be harnessed to serve public access needs while creating more efficient public agencies.

Any rewrite of the old law or new legislation should include the following seven points that are a good start at embracing the current state of technology.

Digitizing Government Operations
Government agencies need to be required to switch from paper to digitizing their operations to facilitate efficient storage and release of information to the public.

Digital Release of Data
The use of data storage software that can export data while simultaneously removing data that may be exempt from disclosure must be mandated.

Uniformity
Information needs to be kept & released in a uniformed fashion in association with other related public institutions, i.e., police agencies & prosecutorial agencies. This is to provide the public with the ability to efficiently track information across agencies.

FOIA Document on file with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office
Agencies must be mandated to produce a document kept on file with the Attorney General’s Office about what data the Agency produces and what is and is not open with explanations for why data is closed. This will allow the Attorney General’s Office to mandate access prior to a request and legal battle. Once this document is put on file agencies must be mandated to keep the public data online for download and also be required to update that data on a regular basis. Agencies should be required to keep and make public a schedule for when this data will be updated. This will significantly reduce expenditures by public agencies in handling requests because there will be no need for a citizen to file a request.

Attorney General’s Office Audit of FOIA File
The Attorney General’s Office should be empowered to carry out regular audits of the FOIA files kept by public agencies to measure the agency’s compliance with public requests. Penalties for a track record of non-compliance must be severe and public. Penalties for ill kept records also need to be severe.

Scalable Penalties
Penalties against agencies for non-compliance must be mandated and be scalable to the size of the institution. While a $1,000 fine would be significant to a small policing agency in downstate Illinois, it would not achieve the needed political consequences for agencies in Chicago or Springfield.

Redress in Court Maintained
While the Chicago Justice Project supports the concept that decisions by the Attorney General’s Office of Public Access Counselor will be binding on public agencies, this should not limit the ability of citizens to seek review of denials by either the public agency or the Public Access Counselor in court.

The range of issues within the criminal justice system that the public & policy makers know little about is astounding. Innovation in our criminal justice policies and practices will only be driven by greatly increased access to information about how the system operates, who operates it, and with whom the system interacts. Each of the levels within the system, police – prosecutors – judicial – incarceration, generates large amounts of data that they hide from public knowledge, restrict access, or do not collect. A reversal of these current practices will dramatically & permanently alter the way communities and policy makers think about and participate with the criminal justice system in Chicago and Cook County.

Traditional concepts of public accessibility have always been extremely limited in Chicago and Cook County. Requirements for how agencies collect and release data to the public must be completely re-conceptualized from the ground up. Policy makers need to require that public agencies work together to strategize about what information they will collect and in what format it will be released. Standardization protocols need to be created so that multiple agencies within a system, like the criminal justice system, release data in a manner that will allow easy matching of data points across agencies. This will, for example, allow policy makers to track a single case across the entire criminal justice system rather than just within a single agency.

The advances in information technologies allow data to be collected and released to the public in a very efficient manner. Part of the re-conceptualizing process must include forward thinking about how to collect and release data in an actionable format. Actionable format is one that allows community members, policy makers, and journalists to act upon the information without the need for extended time spent requesting access to data through a formal process that screens out potentially politically damaging requests.

Numbers from agencies that support rape survivors detail the belief that 1 to 1.5 in 10 rapes in Chicago are reported to authorities. Another number that I heard academics talk about states that 1 in 10 rape cases brought to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for prosecution by the Chicago Police result in prosecutions. The current state of data gathering in the Chicago/Cook County criminal justice system does not allow us to verify these numbers. This made me think, what other questions / facts associated with rape cases (aggravated criminal sexual assault as defined by Illinois law) are we unable of knowing? Here is a list that came to mind:

1. How many community members have filed complaints for rape in our community?
2. What are the demographics of the complainant and the accused?
3. What is the history of complaints filed by the complainant?
4. What is the history of rape or other sexually violent crimes by the accused?
5. How many of these complaints by community members are being judged by the Chicago Police Department as either legitimate or not legitimate?
6. What protocol is the Chicago Police Department using to judge the legitimacy of the complaints?
7. What are the real world differences in the amount of evidence associated with these cases and what role does that play in how the Chicago Police Department judges the legitimacy of each case?
8. How many of these complaints have resulted in arrests by the Chicago Police Department?
9. How long were the individuals arrested in these cases held by the Chicago Police Department?
10. What are the demographics of those held versus those not held?
11. What are the demographics of the victims in the cases where the accused is held versus when the accused is not held?
12. What unit within the department made those arrests?
13. Where were those arrests made?
14. How many of these arrests have resulted in the Chicago Police Department pursuing charges with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office?
15. What are the demographics of those involved in the cases that the Chicago Police Department chose to pursue charges versus those where charges were not pursued?
16. How many of these complaints have resulted in charges being filed by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office?
17. What protocol is the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office using to judge the legitimacy of the complaints?
18. Why has the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office disagreed with the judgment of the Chicago Police Department and not filed charges in a particular case?
19. What are the demographics of the individuals involved in the cases deemed to be legitimate by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office versus cases deemed to be not legitimate?
20. What are the realities associated with the amount of evidence involved in the cases the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office decides to press charges versus those cases not perused by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office?
21. How many of these complaints have resulted in convictions, what charges are those convictions for, and how long are the sentences?
22. How many of these cases resulted in a plea bargain?
23. What are the demographics of those involved in cases that resulted in a plea bargain versus those that did not result in a plea bargain?
24. How many of these cases went to trial?
25. How many of the cases that went to trial resulted in a conviction?
26. How many of these cases had charges filed but then charges were dropped?
27. How long were the sentences for each case that went to a trial and resulted in a verdict?
28. What are the demographics of the complainant and the accused in the case that went to trial and resulted in a verdict?
29. What are demographics of the judge, prosecutor, and jury for the cases that went to trial and resulted in a verdict?
30. What were the demographics of the members of the jury pool as a whole?
31. What were the demographics of the jury pool members that were excluded from serving on the jury?
32. Why were the jury pool members that were excluded by both the defense and prosecution excluded?
33. How long were the sentences associated with the plea bargains?
34. How did the sentences vary depending on the demographics of the victim & the accused for those that took the plea bargains?
35. How long were the sentences for those that went to trial?
36. How did the sentences vary depending on the demographics of the victim and the accused for those that went to trial?
37. How long did those that took the plea bargains serve in prison?
38. How did this vary depending on the demographics of those involved?
39. How long did those that went to trial serve in prison?
40. How did this vary depending on the demographics of those involved?
41. Probation?
42. Parole?
43. Etc…….

With the election of Barack Obama and his verbal commitment to increase public access to governmental data the time has come to address the dismal level of public access to criminal justice related information in Chicago.  The recent temporary assignment of a 14 year old to the rank of Chicago Police patrol officer only highlights the deficiencies that are present in our criminal justice system.

American history is replete with examples of the disinfecting power of Sunshine on government waste, corruption, and ineptitude.  The criminal justice system in Chicago has countless examples of all of the above as well has being littered with dedicated public servants held prisoner by poor policies and management.  Chicagoans for decades have had to tolerate a criminal justice system that operates far from effectively and fairly.

The current status of public access to criminal justice related data could only be characterized as ridiculous and strewn with bureaucratic roadblocks and an extreme level of agency level secrecy.  The Chicago Police Department regards their obligations under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act as a choice rather than legally required.  The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office does not publish an annual report leaving voters and policy makers alike little choice but to guess at how the office actually operates.   The Cook County Circuit Clerk’s Office’s computer system that allows the public to search cases in person at their office is less user friendly and efficient than my old 1980s Commodore 64.  There is no ability for a community member, researcher, or policy maker to track a case across the width and breath of the system, maybe not even within an agency.

The current level of information access within the criminal justice system in Chicago and Cook County has not just happened through chance.  It is a choice.  Not one of the three agencies have put any significant resources towards digitizing their operations in a manner that would increase public access.   The criminal justice agencies in Chicago and Cook County have chosen to shield their data from public access and prefer to use friendly media outlets to put information on display for the public in a manner that is least empowering as possible.  It is time that the public, the media, and policy makers hold these agencies to their legal obligations under Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act and force the agencies to turn information over to the public.

Chicago Police Department
Recently the Chicago Police Department has instituted the CLEAR website.  This has been touted by the Chicago Police Department as a breakthrough in transparency for policing in America.  The site does allow an increased level of access to certain types of data, mainly data the department is happy to share.  The data does not provide users with better information about the officers working their communities or any history these officers may have of civilian complaints of abuse.  The site is also absent any type of data that would provide users with information about what particular units or officers are at work in their community or what types of arrests they are making.  Had this information been public, communities would have been empowered to participate in an informed discourse about the necessity of the now infamous Special Operations Section.

Since the creation of Illinois’ Freedom of Information Act the Chicago Police Department has had a reputation of completely failing to live up to their legal responsibilities.  When Superintendent Weis was brought in February 1, 2008 there were plenty of promises of increased transparency and openness.   Recent attempts to use the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to information regarding the decision by Superintendent Weis to arm patrol officers with the M4 military grade assault rifle have been met with the same skirting of legal responsibility for which the Department is famous.

Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office is by far the least accessible of all the criminal justice agencies.  They do not publish an annual report or in any way release data that could inform the public’s perception of their work.  In fact, they rely on the complacent media as an accessory to maintain their secrecy.  Without any track record to access, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office operates in a black box, devoid of any community oversight whatsoever.

I was amazed when former Cook County State’s Attorney Dick Devine went to the press concerning the caseload of his prosecutors and sought a pay raise for his prosecutors from the Cook County Board.  I could not reconcile how he could produce caseload numbers per prosecutor and still not be capable of producing an annual report.  In my fifteen years of researching the criminal justice system in Chicago and Cook County this was the first time I saw any numbers produced by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.  This fact alone proves that the office is not incapable of producing numbers and providing them to the public when it suits its needs.  Obviously, the lack of an annual report is a choice rather than something the office cannot produce.

Cook County Circuit Clerk’s Office (Cook County Circuit Court)
In recent years, the Cook County Circuit Clerk’s Office has made attempts at increasing public access.  They have digitized only a minimal amount of information regarding cases before civil judges and made access available through their website.  I was unable to locate any information regarding criminal cases.  Regardless, you can search by case number, plaintiff or defendant or date filed.  If you receive any results, which I did not when searching for civil suits against the Chicago Police Department, only the barest level of information is available.  This limited access does not give you any documents related to the case or even the details of the complaint involved.  While even the flimsiest of access is better than no access at all, the current level of access is far from empowering for anyone that uses it.

The level of digitization within the Circuit Clerk’s Office does not allow the public or policy makers to track the activities of the judiciary in Cook County.  Only broad access to all cases each judge handles, the demographics of everyone involved, and the results of each case, would allow users the ability to make an informed decision about how the judiciary is operating.  From what I see, the level of current access is incapable of providing this information.

Conclusion
Data must be made available across the spectrum of criminal justice agencies and in a concerted effort with an end goal of empowering community members, the media, and policy makers with information about how the system is operating.  Individual agency efforts, while welcome, need to be coordinated with a goal of community empowerment.  Politics and infighting within the agencies has traditionally prohibited the criminal justice agencies from ever working together properly.  When information is released to the public it has traditionally either completely benefited the individual agency or the information has been less than reliable.

The agencies themselves have much to gain by digitizing their work.  Efficiencies within the operations of the agencies through digitization will reduce the cost of services while also increasing transparency.  The Internet and innovation within the information technology field provides the necessary components to allow low cost community access to the data generated by the criminal justice agencies.  Policy makers need to step up and use their regulatory powers to force a level of transparency and openness on these agencies that will truly empower individuals to have a meaningful role in how the criminal justice system operates in their communities.

There are significant differences in the way the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Chicago Police interact with the world.  The FBI swoops into and out of communities with little to no consideration of the consequences to the community/FBI relations.  This is the exact opposite to how an urban policing agency operates.  An urban policing agency should always keep in mind how their activities effect the relation between the community and their agency.  To do so, there must be an understanding of the history between the agency and the communities they serve.  Judging from Weis’ actions and words thus far, it is clear he does not take into consideration the particular history of Chicago police community relations when making decisions.  And he has made few if any efforts to learn this history while he has been on the job.

Since the day Daley announced that Weis was as his choice for superintendent, sources within the department have been critical of his lack of knowledge of policing.  Their major concern was whom on earth was Weis going to listen to in making his decisions.  Long time police officers?  If so, then is an outsider really running the department or is he just a figurehead listening to those insiders with knowledge of how to run the department?  Initially, I brushed this off as sour grapes, but Weis’ decisions to arm officers with the M4 assault rifle and his revival of another gang suppression squad doomed to go off the reservation soon are proof that Weis’ tenure will ultimately produce nothing more than the traditional oppressive Chicago style policing.

As the youth from the Southwest Youth Collaborative and other various groups from across the city protest the deployment of the M4 assault rifle, Weis seems to be oblivious when it comes to understanding why youth of color would be worried about having cops with assault rifles in their community.  This obliviousness can only be attributed to a complete lack of understanding of the routine abuse that has taken place at the hands of police officers in these communities.  This can be attributed to his lack of local policing experience, but cannot be tolerated when Weis makes a decision about deploying assault rifles on the streets of Chicago without ever seeking community input.  When the community does rise up in protest, Weis cannot understand their experiences and thus the basis for the community reaction.

It certainly seems from Weis’ actions and words involving the deployment of the M4 that for him at least, there is no historical memory of the Chicago Police Department and the communities they serve. It’s as if policing in Chicago started the first day he took the job.  This is a scary proposition because thoughtful decisions cannot be made in a vacuum but must always be made with an understanding of the context of the situation.  No Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department can make decisions about how to move the department forward without understanding the mistakes the department has made in the past.  Weis could not have possibly taken the time to do this considering his decision to deploy the M4 came on his 84th day on the job, counting weekends!  His decision to revive the Special Operation Section (SOS) street unit in the new Mobile Strike Force came on Weis’ 250th day on the job.

The recent news that Chicago Police Superintendent Weis is considering reviving the disgraced Special Operations Section is very troubling.  Ongoing Investigations initiated by both Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office and US Attorney’s Office in Chicago have yet to be completed and Weis has somehow determined that the unit at the center of the various investigations deserves to be revived.  Once again the citizens of Chicago are left to only speculate about the motivations behind this move because Weis has not made any attempts to inform us.

With both the federal and state investigation ongoing it is safe to assume that the Department, policy makers, and the citizens of Chicago have yet to understand the depths of the corruption at the heart of the Special Operation Section’s street unit.  Local reports quoted anonymous sources saying that this unit will be better trained and supervised.  How can that be when the investigations into the unit have not been completed and we cannot understand how poorly trained and supervised the unit was?  Without this vital knowledge it is hard to contemplate how the authorities within the Department could feel comfortable reestablishing a similar unit with the possibility of utilizing much of the same group of officers.

Weis and his colleagues within the Department have demonstrated on more than one occasion that there is not a practice of applying lessons learned from the past (even the recent past) when making decisions in the present.  The Department has decided to disregard their inability to understand the recent past when making their decision to revive the disgraced SOS street unit in the form of the Mobile Strike Force.  Weis was brought in, among other reasons, to revive the credibility of the Department within communities of color throughout this city, not to revive the SOS street unit with a different name.

The continuation of the status quo on public access to data generated by the Chicago Police Department forbids any inquiries from the public in their search for answers to the level of abuse and corruption at the hands of the SOS street unit.  “Institutional amnesia” with the Department forbids Weis from understanding the effect the SOS street unit had on communities of color in our city.  If Weis is to take the Chicago Police Department down a progressive path his actions over his first 250 days do not reflect this.

In his first 84 days, Weis decided to make a major leap forward in the level of firepower available to beat officers throughout the city by deploying the M4 assault rifle without ever seeking community input.  Now on his 250th day Weis has decided to revive a disgraced unit being investigated by both county and federal prosecutors for kidnapping, robbery, and even murder for hire.  Unfortunately, Weis is demonstrating with his actions that decisions about policing in Chicago are once again being made without applying lessons learned from past mistakes.

Weis has done what all Chicago Police Superintendents before him have done: use the excuse of a crime spike  to institute a special unit that will most likely go bad.  Many members of communities of color throughout this city called the street unit of SOS “snatch on site”.  This is a direct reference to the widespread allegations that SOS was actually kidnapping people of color off the street, falsely arresting them, seizing their keys, emptying their homes and then releasing them.  This is an allegation that CJP has heard on many different occasions in many communities of color.  Are all the allegations legitimate?  I dare say probably not.  Have they all been investigated?  I am sure they have not.  Should Weis or the citizens of Chicago be comfortable with the revitalization of a disgraced and brutal unit utilizing much of the same personal before the investigation into their misconduct is complete?  I dare say no.  But Weis is.

The news this week that former Police Commander Jon Burge has been indicted on federal charges nearly thirty years after the alleged crimes is very important.  This long overdue prosecution exposes the striking, continuous, and deliberate refusal by the accountability departments within the agencies, policy makers, the media, and the courts, to focus their attention on what occurs inside Chicago Police interrogation rooms.  The reporting of the indictment relies on retrospective coverage of the abuse that occurred at the hands of the Chicago Police Department.  However, the discussion fails to evaluate if Burge’s tactics are part of history or if they have only been refined for modern use.

Recognizing Ongoing and Persistent Dangers
We know looking at ongoing civil litigation that abuse at within interrogation rooms is ongoing & persistent.  It is time for accountability departments within the agencies to recognize torture when it occurs and for policy makers, the courts, and the media to catch up on the state of the art in coercive interrogation tactics.  Sleep deprivation and holding suspects incommunicado for days have replaced the electric shock box used by Burge and his cronies.  The case study below demonstrates from ongoing litigation that coercive interrogation tactics continue to be used on a regular basis.  Hoping for politicians to stop the practice is fruitless, as Chicago history and present political leaders have demonstrated over the last thirty years.  Political careers have been made off the results of tortured confessions so public attention to these issues will be required to improve policing practices.

Journalists like Mark Brown at the Sun Times and John Kass at the Chicago Tribune need to start focusing on what occurs today, as you read this, within the interrogation rooms of our police department.  There is no oversight within the structure of the Independent Police Review Authority or the Chicago Police Board to audit Chicago Police Records.  No one verifies that they are not holding suspects past legal requirements and/or using psychological torture tactics within the initial 48 hours to coerce confessions.  We are once again in Chicago operating under a “trust us” structure that leads to abuse and torture.

US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald hosted a press conference to announce Burge’s indictment. The most significant thing he said was his choice to employ the word “torture” to describe Burge’s action - a word we have not heard from another single policy maker, political figure, criminal justice official, or cook county judge in all the thirty years of this saga.   Since 911, our concept of torture has been skewed by efforts to alter a long-standing internationally agreed upon definition. We must work to reinforce our definitions of torture, internationally, nationally and locally.  If we continue to use the new definition we are going to find ourselves repeating past mistakes.

Under the new definition of torture, tactics used by the Chicago Police Department are not only legal, but also encouraged.  We must understand that psychological torture tactics are not just as bad a physical torture tactics, they are worse.

Psychological torture tactics are far more insidious to the criminal justice system because there are no physical scars from physiological torture.  It is impossible to understand how for twenty years Cook County Criminal Court Judges could have possible missed the overt signs of physical torture in their courtrooms.  History provides no encouraging evidence that the ability of similarly situated judges in Cook County will have the ability to detect the results of psychological torture in their courtrooms.

The Lopez case study demonstrates that the current state of the art coercive tactics being deployed in police interrogation rooms in Chicago are psychological.  The federal courts have shown it is beyond their power to stop these tactics being widely throughout the Department’s detective division.  Coercive interrogation tactics have been at the heart of interrogation in Chicago for the greater part of the last 100 years.  Joseph Lopez’ illegal detention case and resulting class action case are examples of the lengths the Chicago Police Department will go to keep the practices in use, despite the financial losses in civil litigation.  This case study is an excerpt of a five part series I wrote on this civil litigation.  You can find these series here:  Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V.

Case Study:
Litigation resulting from abuse perpetrated on the body and mind of Joseph Lopez (Joseph Lopez v. City of Chicago, and Chicago Police Detectives Jennifer Belafonte, Daniel Jacons, and Hector Vergara, 01CV182) by Chicago Police during his 4 days of illegal detention and interrogation uncovered a twenty plus year pattern and practice within the Chicago Police Department of illegal detention of suspects on warrantless arrests.

The Lopez case uncovered a practice within the Chicago Police Department of arresting young people of color without a warrant in case involving violent crimes.  The practice was codified in the general orders dating back at least to the mid-1970s and was called “holding suspects past court call”.  Also uncovered as part of the Lopez litigation was the fact that the CPD has lost a class action resulting from this practice in 1986, (Robinson v. City of Chicago 638 F. Supp 186 (N.D. Ill. 986)).  At that point the CPD had assured the federal appellate court of appeals that they had rewritten the general order that codified the practice and the practice was stopped.  The CPD benefited from the practice and was not about the end the practice without greater pressure.  The general order was never circulated within the department to notify officers that the previous general order was changed and thus the practice never stopped!

Joseph Lopez, 18, was arrested on July 19th, 2000 without a warrant for the murder of 12-year-old Miguel DeLaRosa.  He was held for 4 days and nights in an interrogation room with the lights on all the time, cuffed to the wall most of the time.  At the end of the four days, Lopez falsely confessed to the murder, he was subsequently released weeks later when the real culprit was apprehended.  Lopez sued the CPD and, after much litigation, settled his suit; however, a separate class action suit was born from the discovery process involved in Lopez’s suit, the Thomas Dunn case.  (Dunn Complaint 04-CV-06804)

The Dunn case was certified as a class action on October 5, 2005.  On the day Chicago Police Superintendent Terry Hillard retired, August 15, 2003, he circulated the general order that had been rewritten almost twenty years earlier as a result of the Robinson case.  The date of certification of the Dunn case is important because of the date structure of the third class certified in the case.

Class III: All persons arrested on suspicion of a felony without an arrest warrant and who were detained by the CPD in excess of 48 hours without a judicial probable cause hearing any time from March 15th until the date of certification.

If we examine the date Hillard circulated the general order, August 15, 2003, and the date of the certification, October 5, 2005, we see that even after the general order was circulated the practice did not stop because the judge included in third class cases that occurred after the date Hillard circulated the general order.

The Lopez case has received little to no media attention and no attention from policy makers, accountability departments within the criminal justice agencies, or the courts.  To my knowledge, not a single case in Cook County criminal court has had a confession tossed because of an illegal detention.

For all the bellowing about the fact that more should have been done twenty years ago to stop Burge, nothing is being done to stop the illegal and abusive tactics of today.  Neither the Independent Police Review Authority nor the Chicago Police Board is equipped either financially or with the necessary political power to gain the access they would need track this abuse.  With policy makers continuing to pay the same attention to this issue they have Burge over the last thirty years we are left with no options.  Psychological torture will continue to be the rule rather than the exception within police interrogation rooms in Chicago.