Identifying misconduct-committing officer crews in the Chicago police department

Abstract

Explanations for police misconduct often center on a narrow notion of “problem officers,” the proverbial “bad apples.” Such an individualistic approach not only ignores the larger systemic problems of policing but also takes for granted the group-based nature of police work. Nearly all of police work is group-based and officers’ formal and informal networks can impact behavior, including misconduct. In extreme cases, groups of officers (what we refer to as, “crews”) have even been observed to coordinate their abusive and even criminal behaviors. This study adopts a social network and machine learning approach to empirically investigate the presence and impact of officer crews engaging in alleged misconduct in a major U.S. city: Chicago, IL. Using data on Chicago police officers between 1971 and 2018, we identify potential crews and analyze their impact on alleged misconduct and violence. Results detected approximately 160 possible crews, comprised of less than 4% of all Chicago police officers. Officers in these crews were involved in an outsized amount of alleged and actual misconduct, accounting for approximately 25% of all use of force complaints, city payouts for civil and criminal litigations, and police-involved shootings. The detected crews also contributed to racial disparities in arrests and civilian complaints, generating nearly 18% of all complaints filed by Black Chicagoans and 14% of complaints filed by Hispanic Chicagoans.

A concept analysis of misconduct: Application to nursing education

“…Such behavior is known as misconduct when individuals do not adhere to ethical rules or regulations. [11][12][13] Interestingly, each discipline discusses misconduct from its perspective and according to specific circumstances within its settings, which may result in a very abstract view of the concept. Misconduct as a concept is vague, making it difficult to analyze its meaning; therefore, it will be examined across the disciplines of academics, business, law, and religion to produce conceptual clarity.…”

Correction: Identifying misconduct-committing officer crews in the Chicago police department

“…Except for instances where the article specifies misconduct was confirmed via a court ruling or conviction, the term ‘misconduct’ in this article [ 1 ] should be interpreted as referring to allegations of misconduct rather than confirmed misconduct. Declarative statements in [ 1 ] referring to police misconduct should instead be framed around potential misconduct or allegations of misconduct, e.g., “crews engaging in misconduct” should instead be read as, “crews linked via misconduct allegations”.…”

“…As is clearly stated in the second paragraph of the Conclusion section [ 1 ], the study design did not allow for investigation of causal relationships. As such, statements interpreting the study’s findings should be read as referring to correlative relationships.…”

“…In addition, several statements in the article did not cite source information, and References 17, 54–59 are incomplete in [ 1 ]. Readers should contact the corresponding author with any questions about missing reference details and should take caution in interpreting informative statements in the article that are not supported by cited sources or reported data.…”

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The PLOS ONE Editors This article's [1] Competing Interests statement is updated to:RS is affiliated with the Invisible Institute, for which he was a co-founder. This does not impact the author's adherence to PLOS policies.Before this article was published, the PLOS ONE Editors identified reporting issues for which updates were needed to bring the article into full compliance with the article's standards and requirements.

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