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Police Brutality in Chicago

A guide to the history, facts and figures, and academic studies of police misconduct in the City of Chicago

A History of Chicago Police Brutality

NPR - Decades of Police Corruption
A good introductory article to understand where Chicago strands after decades of police misconduct and the challenges to reforming the system.
Chicago Police Torture Archive
A human rights documentation of former CPD Commander Jon Burge’s violence against black Chicagoans.
WBEZ - A History of Community Policing in Chicago
2019 reporting on the current efforts to introduce community policing as part of the CPD Consent Decree.
WBEZ - 16 Shots: The Police Shooting Of Laquan McDonald
Podcast delving into the murder of Laquan McDonald at the hands of former CPD Officer Jason Van Dyke.
Rolling Stone - An Investigation Into the Violence of the Chicago Police
NOTE: This article is behind a paywall after a number of free articles.

History of Policing

NPR - A History of Broken Windows Policing
A look at the history and justification for the 'broken windows' model of policing.
NPR - Throughline - American Police
Podcast exploring how violent control of Black Americans has been at the heart of American policing since its inception.
Vox - How racist policing took over American cities, explained by a historian

E-book Access Through Columbia

Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power by Simon Balto
Call Number: Available online
ISBN: 1469649594
Publication Date: 2019
Race, Ethnicity, and Policing: New and Essential Readings by Stephen K. Rice (Editor); Michael D. White (Editor)
Call Number: Available online
ISBN: 9780814777480
Publication Date: 2016
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
Call Number: Available online
ISBN: 1620971933
Publication Date: 2020
Evaluating Police Uses of Force by Seth W. Stoughton; Jeffrey J. Noble; Geoffrey P. Alpert
ISBN: 9781479814657
Publication Date: 2020-05-26