It is unfortunate that the investigation performed in the Chicago police department revealed massive loopholes in upholding the law. According to Albrecht (2017) police misconduct and deviance has increased in the United States of America. The investigation identifies several instances of violation of the laws in Chicago police practice as detailed below; Federal laws addressing police conduct cover actions of the local, county, state, and federal officers. The laws are meant to protect citizens in the United States against various forms of police misconduct and brutality ( Roberson, 2017) . Some offices in the DOJ are responsible for enforcing the laws ( Stinson, 2017) . The investigation concluded that members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) use force that contravenes human rights. Under the United State law (34 U.S.C. § 12601) , CPD registered differential acts of police brutality. Further, the CPD failed to adequately review these incidents, which encouraged their prevalence. Additionally, the police were accused of discriminating citizens on the basis of race. The federal law (42 U.S.C. § 2000d, et seq. and 34 U.S.C. § 10228) prohibits police discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex or religion. For instance, an officer once detained a 12 year old boy based on his race. According to the police officer the boy was old enough to engage in gang violence. Despite the father’s appeal that the adolescent was too young, it was later determined that the officer practiced racism by unfairly incarcerating the young child. The Indigenous People’s Rights Act (IPRA) department has been cited for neglecting cases against their officers. For instance, an offence was reported where an officer insulted a15 year old girl. IPRA failed to rightly investigate this case as required by the law. Even though witnesses volunteered to defend the girl, IPRA failed to do their due diligence by only obtaining a statement from the accused officer and ignoring the witnesses’ statement. Hence, the IPRA’S officer’s negligence deprived the girl justice. According to Donnelly (2019), states in the United States employ the consent decree when investigating their police officers. Hence, Chicago state should voluntarily enter into a federal consent decree. A federal consent decree needs to be passed both by the part that sues the state and the state being sued ( D’Souza, 2019) . Hence, there amounts sufficient evidence to incriminate the police force in Chicago. The DOJ may require Chicago city to do the following:
Investigate any pending cases of police brutality
Take stringent actions on police officers who are found to have used excessive force
Provide training to police officer on instances where they can use excessive force and instances where they cannot
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
To put in place policies that govern the investigation of police misconduct by the relevant agencies
Previously, various states were coerced to implement the federal consent decree to avoid stringent repercussions from the court system. States that have been in such situations include:
State of Delaware
State of California
New Jersey
Nevada
Florida
The mayor and the police officer should realize that the crime committed by the latter is already known by the public. As such, it is important to show remorse and offer the public a course of action that will be used to reduce the prevalence of police misconduct. The ideal press release would be as follows; It is with so much remorse that we recognize the very police force that has been mandated with the authority and the power to protect the masses have now become a threat to the very people it needs to protect. From time to time some of our officer has been reported to have been involved in police misconduct. Further, some of the agencies that have been mandated with the role of investigation police misconduct have failed on their functions. However, we stand before you as the mayor and the police chief giving a promise to change the status quo. Stringent punishments will be meted on the police officers who have been involved in various acts of misconduct. Additionally, a toll free line will be provided on where any individual will freely report cases of police misconduct in real time. This action will help us to curb the plague that mars our police forces. We sincerely request you to bear with us and trust that we will always act in a timely manner
References
Stinson, P., National Institute of Justice (NIJ), US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, & United States of America. (2017). Examining Police Officer Crime.
Donnelly, E. A., & Salvatore, N. J. (2019). Emerging Patterns in Federal Responses to Police Misconduct: A Review of “Pattern or Practice” Agreements over Time. Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society , 20 (3), 11131.
Albrecht, J. F. (2017). Timetable: Police Deviance and Serious Misconduct in the United States. In Police Brutality, Misconduct, and Corruption (pp. 9-25). Springer, Cham.
D’Souza, A., Weitzer, R., & Brunson, R. K. (2019). Federal investigations of police misconduct: a multi-city comparison. Crime, Law and Social Change , 71 (5), 461-482.
Roberson, C. (2017). Police Misconduct: A Global Perspective . CRC Press.
