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        <p>
          After years of litigation by the Invisible institute, more than 56,000 records of police misconduct complaints have been released to the public.
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        <p><br /><a class='btn btn-inverse' href='http://explore.cpdb.co'>Browse the complaints <i class='fa fa-fw fa-arrow-right'></i></a></p>
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        <p>While a high number of complaints does not necessarily indicate an abusive officer, it should merit internal inquiry. According to independent reports paid for by the City of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department’s current system of tracking officers is mired in inefficiency and “shortcomings” that leave it unable to properly analyze complaints data for patterns among problem officers.</p>

        <p>A "universal tracking system,"" as recommended by department analysts, does not exist across the city’s multiple investigatory units — instead, we’ve begun that process here.</p>

        <p>The Citizens Police Data Project, and the stories told from it, provide a model for public input and oversight. The database aims to demonstrate what a system of police accountability could look like.</p>

        <p><br /><a class='btn btn-inverse' href='http://explore.cpdb.co'>Browse the complaints <i class='fa fa-fw fa-arrow-right'></i></a></p>
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    <h2>Our Recent Findings</h2>

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        <p>26,787 allegations of a were filed against Chicago Police Department officers between March 2011 and March 2015. Of those, _____(%) involved an encounter with a citizen.</p>

        <p>Less than 2% of all complaints resulted in any discipline.</p>
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        <p>When punishments are given to officers, the vast majority lead to the violation being noted, reprimand, or suspensions of less than one week.</p>
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        <p>Complaints are disproportionately filed against a small subset of the Chicago Police Department.</p>

        <p>Repeat officers - those with 10 or more complaints - make up 10% of the force but receive 30% of all complaints. They average 3.7 times as many complaints as the remaining 90% of officers.</p>
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        <p>Black Chicagoans filed 61% of all complaints in the database, but make up only 25% of sustained complaints.</p>

        <p>White Chicagoans––who made 21% of total complaints––account for 58% of proven complaints.</p>
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        <h2>Our story</h2>

        <h3>Stateway Gardens Litigation</h3>
        <p>Ten years ago, Invisible Institute founder Jamie Kalven was reporting out of a vacant unit in Stateway Gardens—at the time one of the last remaining high rises from Chicago’s public housing projects—when a resident of the building, Diana Bond, was assaulted by a group of police officers. The officers who ransacked her home and harassed her were well known to the other residents of her building; their reputations for brutality had already earned them the nickname “The Skullcap Crew.”</p>

        <p><img src='/images/story-1.jpg' alt='' title='' class='img-responsive' /></p>

        <p>When Bond told Kalven of the encounter, he encouraged her to make an official complaint. At the time, complaints were investigated by the     Office of Professional Standards, in an office across the street from Stateway Gardens. Kalven also introduced Bond to Craig Futterman, an attorney with the police accountability project at the University of Chicago’s legal aid clinic. Futterman and Bond filed a civil rights lawsuit, and in the course of discovery, requested a list of the Chicago Police officers who have accumulated the most complaints. They received those documents, but under a protective order, sworn to secrecy. Bond went on to settle that case, but Kalven filed another lawsuit. He requested that the records of complaints against police officers be made available to the public. It was a case that went on for seven years. In 2014, litigation resulting from Kalven’s reporting on patterns of police abuse at Stateway Gardens gave rise to a watershed ruling: the Supreme of Court of Illinois agreed that records of police misconduct belong to the public.</p>



        <h3>The Invisible Institute</h3>
        <p>Another, almost unintended, result was the Invisible Institute, which grew into a journalistic production company on the South Side of Chicago working to enhance the capacity of civil society to hold public institutions accountable, develop strategies to expand and operationalize transparency, and make perspectives too often excluded from public discourse visible.</p>

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        <h3>Methodology</h3>
        <p>The data compiled in this interactive platform are the result of three sets: the “Moore” database, which includes a partial list of police misconduct allegations from May 2002 – December 2008; the “Bond” database, which includes a partial list of misconduct allegations from May 2001 – May 2006; and a complete list of misconduct allegations from March 2011 – September 2015, made public as a result of Freedom of Information Act request.</p>

        <h3>Next Steps</h3>
        <p>The Citizens Police Data Project has collected more than 56,000 unique complaints but what’s at stake could prove to be a tidal wave of hidden information. The Fraternal Order of Police union has intervened in the city’s decision to turn over complaint data from 1967, effectively blocking public inquiry into those allegations through a temporary injunction. The city has appealed the injunction, and the Invisible Institute has filed an amicus brief in support of the city's position.</p>

        <p>If the union prevails, the bulk of police disciplinary records will be destroyed. However, if we win—and we expect to—the city will, in effect, shed light on Chicago’s entire disciplinary database for the last half century.</p>
        
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        <h2><i class='fa fa-fw fa-info-circle'></i> Get Updates</h2>

        <p>Sign up for our mailing list for updates from the Invisible Institute and the Citizens Police Data Project.</p>

        <p><br /><a href='http://invisible.institute/subscribe/'>Sign up for the Invisible Institute newsletter<i class='fa fa-fw fa-arrow-right'></i></a></p>
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        <h2><i class='fa fa-fw fa-download'></i> Download the Data</h2>

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          Are you a researcher, journalist, data professional or community member interested in analyzing the data? Email us to request the full data files used in the Citizens Police Data Project.
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        <p><a href='mailto:info@invisible.institute'>Contact us to get the data<i class='fa fa-fw fa-arrow-right'></i></a></p>
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