Vol. 3 Issue Issue 27
November 14, 2023
Today, the Invisible Institute and our partners at City Bureau published an investigation into missing persons cases handled by the Chicago Police Department.
The Invisible Institute’s director of data Trina Reynolds-Tyler and City Bureau reporter Sarah Conway discovered the CPD prematurely closed at least four missing persons cases where the victim was murdered or never located. These cases are indicative of a much larger issue: many families report that contrary to state law, officers forced them to delay filing missing persons reports and that racial bias contributed to indifferent police responses to their cases. Black Chicagoans make up three-quarters of those reported missing, and because of CPD’s poor record-keeping, over 40% of recent missing persons cases are missing critical data points.
You can find our reporting in the Chicago Reader. All of our reporting is also published at chicagomissingpersons.com. Stay tuned for additional reporting forthcoming.
This investigation emerges directly from Trina’s groundbreaking Beneath the Surface project, which uses community-driven machine learning to investigate police misconduct. Trina and data scientists from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) created a natural language processing model to look for patterns of misconduct hidden in a trove of 30,000 police complaint files made public via a lawsuit filed by Charles Green.
Hundreds of community volunteers reviewed and tagged complaints to train the model and identify new patterns. That model quickly flagged missing persons cases as a major theme in civilian complaints. Trina and Sarah then spent the last two years digging into the issue, interviewing dozens of families, speaking to police officers and academics, and combing through the data that CPD keeps about missing persons.
Our team is incredibly proud of Trina and the wider team, including staff at the Invisible Institute, City Bureau and HRDAG. This investigation is a powerful example of how the Invisible Institute brings together journalists, data scientists, lawyers, and educators to work together to confront human rights abuses. Trina’s commitment to combining rigorous reporting and data analysis with the work of building relationships with the people affected by official misconduct embodies how our entire team tries to approach our work.
Andrew Fan
Executive Director
Arbitrating police terminations could result in a ‘decade of police impunity’
Sam Stecklow, trina reynolds-tyler, and Andrew Fan
In a recent issue of the Chicago Reader, journalists Sam Stecklow, Andrew Fan, and trina reynolds-tyler write about what’s at stake in the fight over police disciplinary arbitration. Should City Council approve the arbitration provision in the new contract with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), the way Chicago police officers appeal disciplinary charges could result in secret hearings, more officers getting off the hook for misconduct, and an overall breakdown in the city’s newly strengthened police oversight infrastructure.
Read the full article →
Bonus: Read Jamie Kalven and Craig Futterman’s Op-Ed on the arbitration issue in the Chicago Tribune →
Join Us: Supporters' Convening
We invite you to join us for our annual supporters' convening in November. On November 28th, we will gather at the Chicago Athletic Association's Stagg Court from 6:00 - 8:00pm in celebration and reflection of our work over the last year and a preview of what's to come.
Thank you for your support of our work. We hope to see you next month.
