The Network Structure of Police Misconduct in Chicago

Widely publicized deaths and injuries to civilians at the hands of law enforcement have brought police misconduct to the forefront of debate in Chicago and the nation at large. This debate increasingly recognizes that these incidents cannot be reduced to a few “bad apples” but reflect systematic factors of how police work is organized.

In this project, N3 uses several decades of detailed administrative records from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to understand the social and institutional contexts that foster and reenforce officer misconduct.

Relying on theories and methods from network analysis, our ongoing studies address such issues as identifying how partners and teammates socialize officers into “cultures of misconduct,” career trajectories before and after major misconduct allegations, and recognizing escalation of problem behaviors early in officers’ careers.

These projects will develop new ways of thinking about how to reduce misconduct with an eye towards integrating such information into police reform and training efforts in the city.

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