Chicago Police Department: A Reform To Justice
By Zion Golliday
Chicago is one of the most captivating and largest cities in Illinois that has millions of people doing their part to maintain its charm. A big part of what helps maintain Chicago’s charm and more importantly its safety is the Chicago Police Department (C.P.D.). Although C.P.D. works tirelessly to make Chicago as safe as possible over the years that objective for C.P.D. has been put into question by its very own citizens after numerous horrific and sometimes deadly incidents. This has called for many citizens to call for police reform but for years C.P.D. has seemed to have trouble accomplishing this goal. To find a possible solution I’ve researched and looked to identify the five roadblocks to police reform regarding the Chicago Police Department.
The Five Roadblocks To Police Reform (C.P.D.)
As I stated earlier Chicago isn’t new to this problem as it’s been affecting citizens all over and for years now. And though the infographic shows five roadblocks it mainly boils down to one issue which is poor training. The Chicago Police Department has incredibly inadequate training for its officers. This no doubt results in undertrained officers with even the best intentions causing injuries, deaths, and incidents that could’ve been more than avoidable if trained properly and at the very least reprimanded for poor misconduct on any level. In addition to this officers with the wrong intentions behave in the same manner and C.P.D. does little to nothing about it. As shown in the infographic (C.P.D.) Over 30,000 accusations of police misconduct were reviewed and only 2% of these complaints were upheld, and 98% of them resulted in no disciplinary action. This affects the Chicago Police Department’s relationship with the public greatly as how can the citizens trust officers “good” or “bad” when they appear to be above the law especially when the department has a lack of transparency and communication with the public. Also shown in the infographic is the fact that C.P.D. provides collected data from the department that is publicly reported by the City is often incomplete, and at times, inaccurate.
Although the Chicago Police Department has had many ups and downs Chicago still does look to make an effort to transform itself into a more trusting and responsible place. The Chicago Police Department over the years has implemented many systems and devices to help get things back on track, but only in time will the Chicago Police Department have to grow and regain the trust of its community.