Don’t like police misconduct? Blame the union contract

Police depend on the community to do their job effectively. But cooperation must be built on trust.

That trust has been fraying for years in Chicago. And when Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot and killed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald two years ago, it took another crushing blow.

{mosads}Many in the community have lost faith in the police, and many officers have lost confidence in their ability to do their job effectively.

McDonald’s death set the wheels in motion for a much deeper look at policing practices in the city of Chicago.

The U.S. Department of Justice recently released the findings of its yearlong civil rights investigation, and the results paint a picture that’s hard to stomach.

Many reading the headlines are left wondering how we got here. The answer is complicated. But one constant is a problematic contract between the police department and the Fraternal Order of Police.

Too often, this union contract serves to undermine public trust in law enforcement.

For example, the contract stipulates that disciplinary files be destroyed within five to seven years, even though an officer may still be on the job and displaying patterns of misconduct during that time. Police records are essential when evaluating both individual and institutional shortcomings. A bill that would have taken deletion of disciplinary records off the table in collective bargaining died in the state capital in 2016.

The city hasn’t strictly enforced the destruction of records, which is good news as the DOJ’s report reinforces the vital importance of preserving disciplinary files, including complaint records.

“The City received over 30,000 complaints of police misconduct during the five years preceding our investigation, but fewer than 2 percent were sustained, resulting in no discipline in 98 percent of these complaints,” the report found.

“This is a low sustained rate.”

The rules governing disciplinary actions are also murky.

According to the collective bargaining agreement, an officer is entitled to up to a 48-hour delay once a disciplinary interview is requested (for non-shooting complaints).

Interviews themselves are highly regulated, and officers are informed of the procedure and investigators ahead of time. They are allowed to refuse polygraphs. Officers have copies of their previous statements before being re-interviewed. And they can’t be sanctioned for false statements unless they are allowed to see video footage and fix their statement accordingly (they can also get interview questions ahead of time).

The Justice Department’s report flagged other concerning practices, writing that investigators “directly sought to influence officers’ statements—in the officer’s favor—by asking unnecessary leading questions during investigative interviews.”

These are just a handful of the contract rules that obstruct investigations into wrongdoing.

Chicago suffered more than 700 homicides in 2016, more than any other city in the country. Headlines in the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times rattle off multiple stories of gun violence each day. Many take for granted that this is just the way things are on the south and west sides of the city.

Now more than ever, trust in the men and women charged with maintaining public safety is essential. In September 2016, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans to hire 1,000 new officers, detectives and supervisors in the next two years. These new officers and their fellow brothers and sisters in blue will be subject to the next collective bargaining agreement between the Chicago Police Department and the Fraternal Order of Police, which is being renegotiated now.

The city has agreed to work together with the Justice Department and the community to create a plan to address the problems the DOJ report uncovered. A 2016 report from Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force called for an end to the destruction of records and removing disciplinary policies that “make it easy for officers to lie if they are so inclined.”

If Chicago is ever expected to heal, officials need to remove the barriers that divide the police and the communities they serve. These include rules that encourage a culture of secrecy and stymie accountability. A better contract won’t undo a “code of silence” on its own, but it’s time the FOP accept reforms that allow the public to hold bad actors accountable.

Hilary Gowins is managing editor and director of content strategy at the Illinois Policy Institute.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.