Breaking the Silence: Transitional Justice in Chicago

Breaking the Silence: Transitional Justice in Chicago By Heather Lyon, Third-Year Undergraduate in the Department of Anthropology Submitted for consideration in the Ignacio Martín-Baró Human Rights Essay Competition, 2013 Breaking the Silence: Transitional Justice in Chicago Transitional justice – a conceptual and theoretical framework through which societies can “redress the legacies of massive human rights abuses” – is a process not often considered to be necessary for use in the United States.1 This form of justice is generally discussed in the contexts of new democracies and post-conflict nations and implemented in deeply agitated environments, often in the developing world. In this paper, however, I argue that the continuing history of racially discriminatory abuse by law enforcement systems in Chicago – a history punctuated by the 20-year regime of torture administered by Police Commander Jon Burge – represents a “legacy of massive human rights abuses” in need of a large-scale process of transitional justice. Although Chicago is not a typical setting for this sort of approach, given its pre-transition state and the ongoing nature of the abuses in question, I argue that the ideals, goals and tactics that have developed in the past century in the field of transitional justice – particularly the institution of the truth commission – could be immensely productive in Chicago. By focusing on truth- finding, acknowledgment, re-building and reform, a process based in the norms of transitional justice could provide exactly the sort of guidance needed to address these systemic human rights abuses, take action against them, and begin the slow process of healing in Chicago. In this paper, I will first examine the relationship between law enforcement and communities of color in Chicago. Beginning with the Chicago Police Torture Cases, I describe how the 100-plus victims of torture and their allies have struggled for justice against a system that has actively concealed the crimes in a city that has largely ignored their suffering. Then, I illustrate how the broken system of police oversight has allowed police brutality to proliferate in economically depressed minority neighborhoods on the South and West Sides, and how this 1 The International Center for Transitional Justice, “What is Transitional Justice?” http://ictj.org/colombia-justicia- priorizacion-2/about/transitional-justice. continuing abuse acts as a form of structural violence that further oppresses communities of color. From there, I discuss the history of transitional justice, considering whether the norms developed throughout this history could be productive in Chicago. To conclude the paper, I offer a short model for transitional justice in Chicago – not a complete plan, but simply a collection of possibilities for action. Part I: Racialized Police Violence in Chicago Throughout the twentieth century, the relationship between people of color and law enforcement bodies in Chicago has been troubled, often characterized by discrimination and violence.2 This history manifested itself on a large and particularly brutal scale in the Chicago Police Torture Cases. Between the years 1972 and 1991, Jon Burge and the police officers under his command tortured as many as 135 African-American men at Areas 2 and 3 Police Headquarters while attempting to extract confessions from them. Burge, formerly an “upstanding and well-decorated police commander” who served as a military police officer in Vietnam, is thought to have imported torture techniques acquired during the war into the interrogation rooms of the Chicago’s South Side.3 These tactics were diverse, but all were meant to humiliate, de- humanize, disempower and cause psychological and physical harm to the victims; these included “electronically shocking men's genitals, ears and lips with cattle prods or an electric shock box, anally raping men with cattle prods, suffocating individuals with plastic bags, mock executions, and beatings with telephone books and rubber hoses as well as routinely depriving the victims of 2 Green, Adam. Testimony before the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. January 11, 2011. 3 Conroy, John. Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 2001. 18. 2 bathroom facilities, sleep and nourishment.” 4 These methods exceed even the limited violence that is often customarily (and dubiously) accepted in police interrogation settings. They clearly amount to the “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution, and fit the definition of torture – “intentionally inflicted severe mental or physical pain or suffering” – in the United Nations Convention Against Torture (ratified by the United States in 1994).5 As a greater collection of evidence has been uncovered in these cases over the past four decades, it has become apparent that race was a defining factor in Burge’s reign of terror, shaping the choice of victims as well as the tactics. In their 2007 Shadow Report prepared for the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Joey Mogul and Andrea Ritchie explain that “the torture was clearly racially motivated,” and describe how “many of the victims were subjected to racist epithets and slurs throughout their interrogations. Numerous victims were repeatedly called ‘nigger,’ while others were threatened or subjected to what detectives referred to as the ‘nigger box’ – the electric shock box.”6 By referencing the historical and social systems that value the lives and words of white people (particularly those with great social- institutional power, like police officers) over African American accused criminals, Burge and his officers alerted their victims to their total hopelessness, leaning on racist norms to draw out (often false) confessions. The incredible violences committed against Burge’s victims did not cease after their interrogation sessions finished; throughout the long and difficult fight for justice these men have been re-victimized repeatedly at the hands of a city and state that did not believe them – and that 4 Mogul, Joey L. and Ritchie, Andrea J. “In the Shadows of the War on Terror: Persistent Police Brutality and Abuse of People of Color in the United States.” Report prepared for the United Nations Committee of the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for the United States of America’s Second and Third Periodic Report to CERD, December 2007. 7. 5 United Nations Convention Against Torture; United States Constitution. 6 Mogul and Ritchie, “In the Shadows,” 7. 3 chose for many years not to listen. Due, in large part, to the close involvement of powerful politicians in the regime that permitted and supported torture, the process of “coming clean” to these crimes is still not finished today. Although Burge’s first victims were tortured at Area 2 in 1972, it wasn’t until 1982, when torture victim Andrew Wilson’s brutal interrogation produced visible evidence of serious mistreatment, that Burge’s actions slowly began coming to light. After Wilson’s torture, then-State’s Attorney (later Chicago mayor) Richard Daley was informed of the situation, but chose not to investigate further, allowing, according to Mogul and Ritchie, “an additional 68 known victims [to be] tortured over the next decade with impunity.”7 It took another eight years, and an immense combined effort on the part of local activists, lawyers, and journalists, before the Chicago Police Department was convinced to conduct an internal investigation of the torture allegations. A 1992 Office of Professional Standards report found not only that the abuse committed by Jon Burge was “systematic,” but also that “[p]articular command members were aware of the… abuse and either actively participated in it or failed to take any action to bring it to an end” 8 In 1993, the Chicago Police board fired Jon Burge and suspended two of his officers from the police force. 9 In the 1990’s, the focus of the activism around the torture cases shifted towards advocacy for the victims of Burge who were still serving prison sentences because of their tortured confessions, including ten torture victims who were then sitting on Illinois’ Death Row. Based, in large part, on his concerns with a system in which an unknown number of men had been condemned to death based on tortured confessions, and on his worries about the racial 7 Mogul and Ritchie, “In the Shadows,” 8; Taylor, Flint G. “A Long and Winding Road: The Struggle for Justice in the Chicago Police Torture Cases.” Loyola Public Interest L. Reporter 17 (3), 2012. 4. 8 Mogul and Ritchie, “In the Shadows,” 8. 9 Taylor, “Long and Winding Road,” 8, 10. 4 inequalities he saw in the application of the law in Illinois, Governor George Ryan imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2000, and subsequently emptied death row in 2003.10 Even by that time, however, no torturers had faced prosecution in Chicago. Seeking justice outside of what was considered a corrupt system, activists and lawyers requested the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to conduct an investigation of Burge’s torture, and also made reports – like that by Mogul and Ritchie referenced above – to international human rights bodies about the abuses in Chicago. Although the Special Prosecutor’s report was ultimately disappointing, these two efforts, supplemented with a great deal of other activist work, finally resulted in Jon Burge’s arrest and subsequent conviction by federal authorities for the

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