An expansive new version of the Citizens Police Data Project (CPDP) has been unveiled by south-side journalism production company the Invisible Institute. The database, created by independent journalist Jamie Kalven, was already the largest public repository of Chicago police misconduct records. Now it’s quadrupled in size to include more than 240,000 misconduct complaints made against more than 22,000 CPD officers going back to the late 1960s. The database has also been enhanced by the addition of Chicago Police Department use-of-force reports and officer commendation records.
Fan’s analysis of the use-of-force reports showed that despite the steep decline in the city’s black population since 2000, black people have steadily remained about three-quarters of the subjects of officers’ use of force. Even in heavily white areas of town, black people are still disproportionately on the receiving end of officers’ use of force. Fan cited Jefferson Park on the far northwest side as an example. There less than 1 percent of the population is black, yet 14 percent of the subjects in officers’ use-of-force reports between 2013 and 2015 were black.
