Chicago police warrants disproportionately target people of color, Inspector General report shows
Inspector General made 1st recommendations after video of botched Chicago police raid of Anjanette Young's home surfaced
CHICAGO (WLS) -- An analysis of Chicago police data shows people of color are disproportionately targeted as subjects for search warrants.
An investigation by the city's Inspector General shows Black men are targeted 25 times more often than white men.
And Black women are targeted 11 times more than white women.
The investigation looks at search warrants issued from 2017 to 2020.
It also found serious issues with the system the department uses to record information on search warrants. It does not capture certain critical data points, such as whether children were present during the execution of a warrant or whether a search warrant was approved as a no-knock warrant.
The IG's office made its first recommendations on search warrant policy changes back in January after video of the wrongful raid of Anjanette Young's house surfaced.
RELATED: Chicago police warrant policy changes proposed in wake of botched Anjanette Young raid
Those changes included extra verification of information prior to serving warrants and more accountability if mistakes are made.
The police department agreed to make those changes.
"This report is the second installment in the Public Safety section's ongoing work on CPD's search warrant practices and policies. Here, we look specifically at CPD's data-what it tells us and what it doesn't-regarding recent search warrants in order to better inform the ongoing policy debate and public conversation around the use of these warrants. CPD and members of the community are best served by a well-informed and productive reform process, and we hope to contribute to that process by providing accessible data as a platform for effective policy change," Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety Deborah Witzburg said. "We are encouraged by CPD's agreement with the recommendations we made in our first interim report earlier this year, and we will continue our work in this critical area."
The full report can be found at bit.ly/SearchWarrantData.
