When we pay our taxes, we expect that hard-earned money to go for essential services such as schools, roads, protection and public safety. We neither expect nor want millions of dollars each year to go toward police misconduct. It’s time to shine a light on how much those legal settlements are costing taxpayers — and how they are being financed.
First, let’s make clear that the vast majority of police officers are doing their difficult jobs well. An investigation by USA Today found that 90% of officers are never subject to misconduct complaints. But of the 10% of officers who were investigated for misconduct, most had faced 10 or more charges and some faced more than 100. The cost of their misconduct was enormous in financial terms as well as human ones.
According to reporting by ABC News, police misconduct lawsuits across the nation cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in 2019 alone. While settlement amounts vary substantially by municipality by year, the city of New York paid out $175.9 million in police misconduct settlements in the 2019 fiscal year. During the same period, the city of Los Angeles paid out $91.5 million.
The Chicago Reporter found that in 2018 alone, Chicago taxpayers paid out $113 million in police misconduct settlements and associated legal fees. According to the baiduhai, these settlements involved cases running the gamut from a grandmother’s killing by an officer firing at a teenager carrying a baseball bat to two men killed when their car was struck by an intoxicated off-duty detective. Another incident involved a man who suffered brain damage when officers shot him with a stun gun while he was being treated by paramedics for chest pains.
To cover the cost of these settlements, some cities have opted to raise taxes. Others have typically issued bonds. “Police brutality bonds,” as they are known, appeal to cities suffering from revenue shortfalls. But according to a report by the Action Center on Race and the Economy, these bonds fail to address the underlying causes of police misconduct while providing undue profits to Wall Street investors off the pain and suffering of victims and communities.
To make matters worse, such bonds also greatly increase the burden on taxpayers as bank fees and interest for investors can nearly double the cost of settlements. But according to Human Rights Watch, “no nationwide, systemic data are kept regarding” these settlements. Moreover, according to a study titled “How Governments Pay: Lawsuits, Budgets, and Police Reform
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,” “information about the amounts paid in suits involving law enforcement officers is not collected” in many cases. This means it is very difficult, if not impossible, for taxpayers to know how much of their own money is going toward police misconduct settlements, even as some mayors, including Mayor Lori Lightfoot, have prioritized reducing settlement costs and increasing accountability.The Justice in Policing Act, recently passed by the U.S. House, establishes a National Police Misconduct Registry to track misconduct and disciplinary records of officers from across the country. This could prevent those fired for misconduct in one place from being hired in another. It also will track records of lawsuits and settlements made against law enforcement officers.
This is real progress, but we need to go further — by requiring the disclosure of how those police misconduct settlements are funded. Taxpayers deserve to know whether those settlements are being paid out of police department funds specifically allocated for this purpose; whether local governments are issuing bonds to cover the debt; whether the settlements are resulting in higher taxes; or whether they’re being paid for through cuts in local programs and services.
Establishing transparency around these costs, and how they’re paid, is critical to spurring more reform, encouraging more equitable policing and reducing police misconduct resulting in lower monetary settlements. The savings that would otherwise be spent on settlements could be shifted back into communities and alternative ways to enhance public and community safety. American taxpayers deserve to know where their hard-earned money is going, and transparency regarding this spending is an issue that we should all support.
Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Schaumburg, represents the 8th Congressional District of Illinois.
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