Justice Department Weighs in on Police Reforms in Baltimore and Chicago
The US Justice Department is responsible for investigating systematic abuses by police departments. In recent years, in parallel with and often in response to grassroots pressure from the Black Lives Matter movement and others, DOJ has opened investigations and helped win important reforms around the country, including in New Orleans, Cleveland, Albuquerque, Newark, Puerto Rico, and Ferguson. Last week the Justice Department weighed in again for reform in Baltimore and Chicago—for what could be the last time for years to come.
As in other cities, the Baltimore and Chicago investigations were sparked by police killings of unarmed Black men, but uncovered wider patterns of discrimination and abuse. DOJ entered a consent decree with the City of Baltimore on January 12 in response to findings of widespread discriminatory policing of the city’s Black communities, excessive force, mistreatment of sexual assault victims, officer sexual misconduct (especially against sex workers), and degrading treatment of transgender women. It requires the city to develop new policies, procedures, training, and oversight in a host of areas. Like several other DOJ consent decrees, it requires the city to specifically prohibit profiling, sexual harassment, and other demeaning treatment of transgender people, and to develop policies to ensure they are treated in accord with their gender.
DOJ also released its investigative findings on the Chicago Police Department on January 13, following a wide-ranging investigation. DOJ found that CPD engaged in an unconstitutional pattern of excessive force that endangered members of the public as well as their own officers. The investigation also cited serious concerns about racially discriminatory policing, mistreatment of Muslims and transgender people, and failure to adequately investigate hate crimes. While a binding settlement will be negotiated with the Justice Department after the presidential transition, the report also puts pressure on the city to continue working with community advocates on reforms.
Today’s movement for police accountability and reform has tremendous urgency for communities of color, people with disabilities, and LGBT people. The findings from the DOJ investigation are echoed in the US Transgender Survey, where a large majority of transgender Americans (58%) who had interactions with law enforcement in the previous year reported discriminatory profiling, verbal or physical abuse, or other mistreatment. For Black transgender people this number was 70%, with similar numbers for Native and Latino/a transgender people. Similar numbers of respondents also said they would be reluctant to call police even if they needed help.
With so much at stake, trans people need a champion for civil rights to lead the Justice Department. Senator Jeff Sessions—President-elect Trump’s pick for Attorney General—is anything but. Sen. Sessions is a longtime opponent of police accountability and of civil rights more broadly. Sessions’ racist and anti-LGBT statements, actions, and ties have been widely condemned by civil rights leaders, including NCTE. Whether the DOJ would continue to pursue such investigations and consent decrees is an open question, as is how vigorously existing decrees will be enforced, everything from Sen. Sessions’ record indicates that they would not.
But movements for justice have never depended solely on the federal government, and so it is here. Even as some in power dismiss and disparage those advocating for their communities, their safety, and their very lives, this important work must and will continue. Regardless of how the new Administration approaches consent decrees and findings reports released by DOJ in recent years, they will continue to be valuable tools for our work around the country, they lay out and validate the problems, as well as many of the policy solutions. NCTE will continue advocating for accountability and reform along with so many others from all our communities.
Visit NCTE’s National Fight Back Action Center to tell your Senators to oppose Jeff Sessions and other extreme nominees.
