Illinois Creates Torture Commission To Provide Reparations for Chicago Police Brutality Victims
The Illinois legislature on this day created the Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission (TIRC) to provide reparations for the victims of brutality by Chicago police officers.
The major focus of the TIRC was the victims of brutality rising to the level of torture by a group of officers let by Lt. Jon Burge. By 2016 the TIRC had referred 17 Burge-related cases for judicial review and another 130 cases not related to the Burge group.
The Illinois Torture Inquiry Relief Commission is one of 5 or 6 efforts in American history to provide reparations to groups of individuals who suffered violations of constitutional rights and human rights by federal, state or local governments (and in some cases by private individuals whose actions were tolerate by government officials).
Jon Burge joined the Chicago Police Department (CPD) in 1972 and he eventually rose to the rank of Lieutenant. It is believed that torture of and brutality against arrested persons began in 1972 and continued until 1991. Estimates of the number of victims range from 118 to over 200. (The higher estimates may include victims of brutality by officers who were not under Burge’s command.) The Burge group had various nicknames, including the “midnight Crew,” and engaged in beatings, suffocation, burning victim’s body parts, holding guns to peoples’ heads, and electric shock of genitals.
The first news report of the Burge group tortures was not published until a Chicago Reader story in January 1990. The Chicago Tribune published additional stories later that year.
Lt. Burge was suspended from the CPD in 1991 and fired in 1993. Because of the statute of limitations, he was immune from prosecution for most of his actions. He has eventually convicted of federal obstruction and perjury charges, which were not subject to the statute of limitations, in June 2010. He served a prison sentence from 2011 to 2014. He died in Florida in September 2018.
According to a report by the Chicago Better Government Association, the complex set of investigations, prosecutions and appeals in all the Burge-related cases, cost the city of Chicago and its tax payers a total of 521.3 million.
In the long history of police brutality in America there has never been anything to match the torture episode in the Chicago Police Department.
Read: Andrew S. Baer, Beyond the Usual Beating: The John Burge Police Torture Scandal and Social Movements for Police Accountability in Chicago (2020)
Read a complete list of decisions by the Torture Inquiry and Relief Association here.
Read the FAQs about the Commission here.
Read the book about Chicago police torture (four chapters on Lt. John Burge): John Conroy, Ordinary People, Unspeakable Acts (2000)
Read the Chicago Better Government Association’s report on how to end Chicago police torture here.
Read the Justice Watch report on the torture and the Commission’s work here.