Streamline Chicago police oversight and use Los Angeles as a model

The recent firing of two Chicago police oversight officials and subsequent calls for Andrea Kersten, chief administrator of the Chicago Office of Police Accountability, to resign add another unfortunate chapter in the drama that is Chicago policing.

More importantly, they are symptoms of an obvious failure in Chicago governance. The failure is this: Our policing is political, not professional.

Professional policing involves constitutional practices and effective community policing. Political policing, on the other hand, is a game of gotcha, conflict and a lack of constructive cooperation.

The chaos surrounding the investigation into the Dexter Reed shooting is a striking example of the latter.

As COPA was investigating the incident, Kersten went public early on with questions about some of the circumstances. Now another oversight body, the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability, has requested that the city’s inspector general investigate COPA. Meanwhile, law professor and former COPA chief Sharon Fairley has filed a series of Freedom of Information requests seeking documents related to "the quality and integrity" of COPA’s investigations.

There are clearly too many parties overseeing policing, with too few results.

First, there is the Chicago Police Board (with a budget of $602,000). Second, there is COPA ($16.8 million and 157 employees). Third, there is the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability ($4 million, with 66 elected officials). Further complicating things, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th Ward) in May introduced an ordinance that would place a referendum on the ballot to expand the size and scope of the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability, while leaving the rest of the entities untouched.

In addition to these three bodies, the mayor, City Council and Office of Inspector General all play significant roles in policing as well.

This extremely complicated arrangement is built to fail. When it does, will the city streamline, or add yet a fourth oversight body?

In Los Angeles, a model to emulate

Chicago’s oversight bodies are mired in politics. And officials must look elsewhere for professional solutions. For starters, they have much to learn from the Los Angeles Police Commission.

The only oversight body in Los Angeles is the Board of Police Commissioners. There are five unpaid commissioners on the board. Reporting to the board is the executive director, a small staff and the Office of Police Inspector General. In 2017 the inspector general's office had a staff of 49 and a budget of $8.5 million for a city that is about 50% larger than Chicago.

In the 1990s, the Los Angeles Police Department was the nation’s worst. There was the beating of Rodney King and the acquittal of the offending officers, riots and the Rampart police corruption scandal that involved nearly 200 cops. In the midst of all this, the Los Angeles City Council appointed the Christopher Commission to study police failures. Along with its recommendations came a consent decree.

Those measures alone were not enough to create an effective organization. It was the work of city charter commissions in 1995 and 1999 that put the inspector general under the authority of the police commission and made sure it reported directly to the board. Those voter-approved charter changes gave the inspector general significantly enhanced powers.

One example is worth noting. The inspector general's office has three divisions: complaints, audits and use of force section. When there is an incident involving police use of force, even if there is no death or injury, a member of the inspector general's use of force section, along with the department’s Force Investigation Division, arrive on the scene while officers are present. The inspector general's staff observes the work of the department’s investigators to make sure their work meets professional standards.

What do the results look like?

In 2023 Los Angeles experienced 323 homicides, or 8.4 per 100,000 residents. Chicago had 617 and 22.5 respectively.

With every killing, Chicago officials react somberly and predictably. But with the stark contrast in organization and results between Chicago and Los Angeles, any reasonable citizen would be justified in asking if our leaders are serious about professional policing, or if they prefer to keep it political.

This Frankenstein monster of police oversight was built wholly by the Chicago City Council. And they will ultimately decide whether to ratify Kersten's removal from COPA. In any case, they should all get on a plane to Los Angeles and see how oversight is conducted there.

Then they will know what to do about their creation.

Ed Bachrach and Austin Berg are the co-authors of “The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities."

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