In recent years, shootings and murders in Chicago have painted a picture of a city that is not providing for the safety of its residents. Too many in our region do not feel safe in their neighborhoods and feel that they have an adversarial relationship with law enforcement. Moreover, personal experiences and statistical trends paint a troubling picture of how law enforcement is applied unequally across racial lines.

Our vision for Public Safety & Criminal Justice is to ensure that residents and police are safe and justice is applied consistently across communities. In our Public Safety and Criminal Justice Platform, Public Safety & Criminal Justice, Civic Consulting Alliance focuses on:

• Reducing gun violence by intervening with those most at risk of being victims or perpetrators of gun violence.
• Improving coordination between government agencies, community groups, non-profits, foundations, faith-based organizations, and residents to reduce violent crime. 
• Improving the fractured relationship between public safety and criminal justice officers and the communities that they serve.
• Reducing incarceration of those who are accused but not convicted of non-violent crimes.
• Improving the effectiveness of the State’s Attorney’s Office by more effectively prosecuting those accused of the most serious crimes and pursuing alternatives to incarceration through diversion programs and specialty courts for those who need support and services more than jail time.

Communicating a policy change of this magnitude to all 13,000 officers was a major logistical, educational, and cultural challenge for the entire Department. Civic Consulting Alliance and five pro bono partners brought private sector expertise to help CPD plan and coordinate this massive undertaking. Over the course of 2017, the Civic Consulting Alliance and CPD partnership coordinated use of force training for every sworn officer in the Department and met an ambitious timeline to complete the trainings over less than six months. The partnership was also able to start addressing CPD’s necessary next steps: making sure that the officers who had to make these important, split-second decisions on use of force and de-escalation fully understood the new policy and were prepared to act within it.

Challenges

Once a new use of force policy was adopted, the Department faced a monumental task: to provide more than 50,000 hours of training—equivalent to 6,500 officer working days—with no model in place for mandatory in-service training. After making a public commitment that the training would be complete and the new policy fully in effect by the end of 2017, the Department also had little margin for error. To accomplish this task, the Department had to design a program that overcame three challenges:

First, CPD had to provide the training without compromising public safety.  CPD operates 24/7 across three shifts and 22 Districts, with officers in each shift and district serving in critical public safety roles. Determining when and how all 13,000 of those officers could go through training without impacting day-to-day operations or compromising public safety required careful balancing.

Second, the Department’s training capacity was already strained. While the CPD Training Academy was preparing for use of force training, it was also ramping up to train 1,000 new officers over the course of 2017 and 2018 as part of a hiring surge. Those extra officers meant larger than usual recruit class sizes for that entire time period. Training every officer successfully on use of force on top of the hiring surge would require careful management of staff time and facilities at the Department’s Training Academy.

Finally, the training course was only the first step to making sure that the shift in policy was fully integrated at CPD. Further action would be necessary to fully implement and evaluate the new policy.

Action

Starting in 2017, Civic Consulting Alliance worked with a new team in CPD’s Office of the Superintendent and pro bono partners from Accenture, A.T. Kearney, the Boston Consulting Group, EY and West Monroe Partners to take on these challenges.

Accenture and EY provided strategic guidance and project management support at the outset, working with CPD to determine how to roll out the training. In collaboration with the Training Academy, this team concluded that the most efficient and cost effective way to get all officers through the new use of force training without putting public safety at risk was to reply entirely on overtime hours. The Superintendent accepted this recommendation, and the plan was put into effect.

Civic Consulting Alliance’s three other pro bono partners all contributed in other crucial ways to begin changing CPD’s culture on use of force. A.T. Kearney helped CPD design an in-service training program that included an annually recurring use of force training; the Boston Consulting Group completed analysis that led to a 16-hour scenario-based use of force training and set the framework for additional future trainings; and West Monroe Partners led workshops with CPD’s top staff on creating lasting change.

Results

As of October 2017, all active CPD officers had received initial training on the Department’s new use of force policy. While CPD has offered its officers elective in-service training for many years, the new training was the first mandatory training on use of force for all officers outside of the training they received as recruits.

That goes even for a 30-year veteran of the Department like Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who often cites his personal commitment to developing officers’ abilities through refresher trainings. Beginning in 2018, officers will receive an advanced, scenario-based use of force training annually.

These trainings won’t exist in a vacuum at CPD. They are part of a broader effort to ensure the new use of force policy is effectively implemented and evaluated. In 2018, this effort has encompassed:

• Launching the Force Review Unit, which will review every non-lethal use of force incident to understand Department-wide patterns and provide recommendations on trainings, equipment needs and changes to CPD policy.
• Involving supervisors earlier and more frequently in reviewing use of force incidents involving their officers.

Together, these initiatives will help the Department and its officers make progress toward their shared vision: that all Chicagoans are safe, supported and proud of the Chicago Police Department.