A thin-slice of institutionalised police brutality: a tradition of excessive force in the Chicago Police Department

Bleakley, Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2512-4072 (2019) A thin-slice of institutionalised police brutality: a tradition of excessive force in the Chicago Police Department. Criminal Law Forum, 30 (4) . pp. 425-449. ISSN 1046-8374 [Article] (doi:10.1007/s10609-019-09378-6)

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Abstract

In the Chicago Police Department, a sustained tradition of tolerating violent conduct has contributed to the fostering of a police culture in which the use of force is celebrated. Evidence suggests that there has been a historical reluctance to take action to discipline officers accused of misconduct – many of whom are highly decorated veterans of the Chicago Police Department. It is the contention of this article that the long-standing endorsement of excessive force in Chicago policing has compromised officers’ ability to thin-slice, a psychological process in which people are able to draw on their experiences and socio-cultural context to make quick decisions under pressure. Instead, officers are instinctively drawn to engage in misconduct as a means to an end, with the confidence that their actions will not attract the sanction of their superiors.

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