WEBVTT

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Every day in Chicago, thousands of people

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have an interaction with a police officer.

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Some of these citizens come away feeling

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that the officer abused their authority.

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And a small subset of this group go on

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to take the step of
filing a formal complaint

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with the Chicago Police Department.

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Since 2000, the city has averaged

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around 7,000 complaints per year.

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Most who experience police
abuse never file a complaint

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or even know that this process exists.

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Nonetheless, these official documents

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are a crucial form of civic feedback.

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In a high-functioning
accountability system,

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the complaints would be used
to identify troubling patterns;

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for instance, a group of
officers repeatedly co-accused

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of using excessive force in
a particular neighborhood.

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Yet for decades the
Chicago Police Department

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did the opposite; complaints
piled up each year,

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few officers were disciplined,

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and patterns in the data were ignored.

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So the Invisible Institute sued

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to make the records public.

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The city then fought for nearly a decade

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to keep them secret. And the police unions

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tried to get the complaints destroyed.

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Ultimately, the public won.

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The city has since released

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more than 100,000 complaint records.

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Having broken through official secrecy,

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we began working to make this data

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easily accessible to
the citizens of Chicago.

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We created the Citizens
Police Data Project,

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an interactive online
database that empowers anyone

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to explore and analyze the misconduct data

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that was hidden from
public view for decades.

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Here is some of what we have
learned from the data so far.

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Chicago police officers
with 10 or more complaints

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comprise around one-fifth of the force.

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Yet this group accumulated
nearly two-thirds

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of the total complaints.

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When we look at the
investigatory outcomes,

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just a tiny share of the total complaints

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have been sustained and
led to any discipline

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for the officers involved.
And the probability

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of a complaint being
sustained drops significantly

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if the complainant is a person of color.

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The majority of complaints
come from the predominantly

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black and brown south and
west sides of the city.

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In recent years, the
complaint data has supported

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the important work of civil
rights lawyers and journalists.

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It has also confirmed the reality

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experienced by many Chicagoans.

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Now that every citizen
can access this data,

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the public debate about
police reform can move forward

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around a common set of facts.

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Explore the data yourself at cpdp.co.