“Positive community interactions” sounds pleasant enough as a policing strategy. Who could deny the benefits of having Chicago police officers serve as messengers of goodwill in the neighborhoods that they serve?
The idea sounds particularly appealing in a city where relations between police and residents have been notoriously poor, notably in neighborhoods that need good policing the most. Small wonder that Chicago police Superintendent David Brown, in a news conference with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, proudly announced an ambitious goal of tripling reported “positive community interactions,” or “PCIs” for short, to an impressive 1.5 million this year.
As a measure of law-enforcement success, the city’s promotion of friendly interactions might encourage the cooperation of victims and witnesses. But, in reducing the city’s high violent crimes, it certainly is no substitute for making arrests.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul offered fuel to that view. In a Feb. 7 memo, Raoul’s office urged city lawyers to “suspend or at least pause” the city’s push for PCIs, which the memo blasted as a “deeply problematic” program.
At a minimum, urges the memo, released in response to a records request by the Chicago Sun-Times, the department should “immediately communicate” to officers that the PCI data will not be used as a numerical performance measure for officers at this time, “even informally.”
This is hardly the first time that the mayor and the attorney general have disagreed over police reforms.
After the mayor downplayed her administration’s slow implementation of police reforms during a 2020 speech, she was upset to hear that a lawyer for Raoul’s office criticized the the city’s handling of the consent decree.
Lightfoot fired back in a text to Raoul — obtained by the Tribune after a records request — that his office took a “cheap political shot” by questioning her administration’s handling of police reforms instead of calling her first personally to discuss the matter.
The texts with Raoul came in June 2020, some 15 months into a consent decree implemented after a lawsuit by the AG’s office.
But rather than sling barbs at other government leaders, the mayor and police superintendent need to take a sharp look at the community policing program and the questionable implementation of PCI data.
Community policing is a major component of the improvements in training, policies and practices that the city agreed to make in its consent decree with the Justice Department that went into effect in 2019.
In short, community policing modernizes the old “cop on the beat” model to increase police visibility, engagement and collaboration with the community in a long-term effort to build trust and break the cycle of violence.
But Chicago’s collection of PCI data is hampered by gaping holes, according to a list of comments and complaints in Raoul’s memo, including the problem that police reports of their PCIs don’t say very much.
Among other problems, officers too often leave out such not-trivial information as their names, badge numbers and the location of the “positive” encounters they’re reporting.
It also is unclear in the reported data as to what sort of interactions the police call “positive.” Reportable PCIs can cover a wide range of activities as diverse as giving directions to drivers, helping to carry groceries or giving a friendly wave to a resident on the street. How many PCI’s are legitimate versus a sly padding of the numbers to improve one’s performance record? That’s not clear.
Raoul’s memo also was concerned about the potential legality and even constitutionality of the city’s setting “goals” that sound dangerously close to racial and ethnic quotas, an issue that has generated “significant litigation” around the country particularly in regard to traffic stops, stop-and-frisk searches and other issues tagged in many Black communities as “driving while Black.”
Spurred by federal complaints, the Police Department has increased its rate of compliance with the consent decree. It has missed fewer deadlines in recent reports and moved closer to compliance with more than half of the provisions reviewed.
But the city’s improvements, however sluggish, have not been trickling down from plans-on-paper to practical implementation fast enough to avoid sharp and persistent criticism from activists and civil rights lawyers.
From the point of view of officers on the street, tallying friendly interactions may sound pleasant and appealing in the best circumstances, but it also can take valuable time and attention away from such other priorities as taking violent offenders off the streets.
Since 2019, arrests citywide have plummeted while violent crime soars. But PCI reports have increased by 500% or more, depending on the district.
Community engagement can be an important component of effective policing, if done right. But it doesn’t necessarily provide officers with the support they need in a department already plagued, like New York, Baltimore and some other major cities, with inadequately trained supervisors and short-staffing.
Before setting any more questionable goals, the CPD needs to revisit its community policing and overhaul a program that, in trying to make Chicago streets safer, may be more feel-good than effective.
Surely, interacting positively with the community, wherever possible, should be a regular part of any public servant’s job.
