CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Report the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (UNWGEPAD)

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1 CHICAGO, ILLINOIS Report the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (UNWGEPAD) Visit on January 24-25, 2016 Prepared by: NATIONAL CONFERRENCE OF BLACK LAWYERS, BLACK PEOPLE AGAINST POLICE TORTURE AND THE US HUMAN RIGHTS NETWORK, Executive Summary 1. This report outlines the effects of racial discrimination on residents of the city of Chicago and The State of Illinois on Criminal Justice as a cross-cutting issue, as well as, Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. It is written on behalf of Black Communities of Illinois and specifically Chicago seeking accountability from local government in ensuring the human rights of Illinois s residents. This Petitioners asks the UN Working Group to elicit from the United States government strategies that will encourage and compel the City of Chicago and The State of Illinois, as well as other local governments, to comply with ALL International Human Rights Laws and Treaties. It also offers direct recommendations for the City of Chicago. 2. The City of Chicago and The State of Illinois have obligations to fulfill the human rights of its residents, as well as to protect its people from the human rights abuses created by others. 3. CERD Article 2 calls upon state s parties to review national and local policies which have the effect of creating or perpetuating racial discrimination. It also requires State Parties to end racial discrimination. Racial discrimination in the city of Chicago is perpetuated when the following disparities are allowed to continue, affecting human rights to a minimum standard of living. The failure to review the impact of local and state policies and regulations in perpetuating racial discrimination violates the rights of people of Chicago. 4. CERD Article 5 calls upon States Parties to prohibit and eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the rights of everyone. 5. Call upon the United States government to encourage, facilitate, monitor and hold accountable the city of Chicago for protecting its residents from racial discrimination. 6. The United States government should oversee local compliance with human rights treaties. 1

2 We are particularly interested in Chicago s compliance. 7. The United States government can offer assistance to the city of Chicago in meeting treaty obligations, through prosecution of federal prosecution of police crimes and ongoing impunity, and negotiation on rules governing city services. 8. The City of Chicago should adopt a city ordinance that anchors its policies and priorities to the fulfillment of Convention to Eliminate all forms of Racial Discrimination, Committee Against Torture, Rights of the Child (adopted by the Chicago City Council), Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and develop robust mechanisms for monitoring the city's compliance. The following information documents the pattern of racial discrimination in the City of Chicago that deprives people of their basic human rights. II. The Denial of Human Right to Education for African-American Communities America s predominantly Black communities are experiencing an epidemic of public school closures. For example, in New Orleans, as of the Fall of 2014, there are only five public schools left in the entire city. The real, underlying cause for these school closures is the ideological positions of certain conservatives. Right-wing conservatives have long sought to eliminate public goods such as public education, and dismantle organized labor, especially teachers unions. Meanwhile, there has been a massive shift in resources from public entities to private organizations, especially within low-income communities of color. Nationally, the number of students enrolled within charter schools has nearly doubled just within the last six years. 9 At the local level, many education systems are being reshaped in an unprecedented fashion: The Chicago Case a. Charter-School-to-Prison Pipeline The school closings, phase-outs, turnarounds, and consolidations have particularly devastating consequences in communities of color that have already been destabilized by divestment, the process of being systematically starved of resources over the course of many 2

3 years. For the past decade-and-a-half, Chicago Public Schools ( CPS ) has promoted an aggressive policy of closing and privatizing public schools in communities of color. Over the past thirteen years, CPS has closed, phased out, turned around, or consolidated 159 neighborhood public schools in the West and South Sides of Chicago, which are neighborhoods of high concentrations of African-American families and students. 14 The primary long-term beneficiaries are large corporations and Wall Street. Among many benefits they realize through school privatization, the expansion of charter schools represents a massive economic boon. As Milton Friedman an economist long beloved by political conservatives said, the privatization of schooling would produce a new, highly active, and profitable industry. Race, Poverty and Prison Chicago s criminal justice system continues to plague efforts to secure respect for fundamental human rights in Chicago. Long-observed patterns of police abuse continue unabated and lack of accountability within police structures have led to widespread distrust of the justice system in minority communities. Sharp disparities in service and inadequate efforts to estab lish better community relations reinforce the distressing reality of unequal treatment. The Chicago Police Department is notorious for lack of transparency, openness or willingness to share information, particularly as it relates to instances of serious misconduct by its officers. Faced with a blue wall of silence in which fellow officers [turn] a blind eye to corruption and later [resist] cooperating with criminal investigations of their colleagues, community organizers and academics often resort to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings to have any chance of getting the information they seek. 1 Although the department denies fostering a culture that tolerates corruption, little is done to discipline the less than 5 percent of officers who are responsible for nearly 50 percent of all complaints from civilians. The Chicago Police Department fails to discipline officers who have repeatedly been accused of misconduct and brutality. The police s lack of transparency has kept the ugliest chapter in Chicago police history from being closed. Between 1972 and 1991, police commander Jon Burge tortured approximately 135 African-American men and women in the Area 2 police facility on Chicago s South 1 Heinzmann, David, and Todd Lightly. Report: bad cops protected. Chicago Tribune. November 29,

4 Side. Beyond the issue of serious misconduct, there continues to be widespread perception of racial discrimination and abuse in minority communities. In 2001, 26 percent of African Americans reported having been stopped by Chicago police that year, compared with 20 percent of Latinos and 16 percent of whites. Reportedly, 64 percent of black males are stopped in the course of a year. 2 In spite of this, racial profiling data, collected since 2004 as mandated by the state, cannot be used as a disciplinary tool, even when they supply evidence of racial bias. 3 Despite solid evidence of rampant police torture and abuse, none of the parties involved has been prosecuted or punished. Impunity is allowed to prevail as the Chicago Police Department, Cook County State s Attorney, and the United States Attorney s office have failed to pursue legal accountability for perpetrators of human rights violations. Without immediate and substantive action by local government, the failures of the criminal justice system are only worsening, to the detriment of Chicago s racial minorities. Recommendations As an initial step, the State and the City should adopt these four measures which are both meaningful and beneficial for all low-income people to measure the success of all public benefit programs: Once an assessment is made of the need, government must act to provide the education, training, barrier reduction and other necessary services. Everyone, regardless of age or ability to work, must be guaranteed the means necessary to procure basic needs and services to ensure a decent standard of living by both the State of Illinois and the City of Chicago. The State and City must focus their efforts on gaining more in the way of public benefits and other programs and services for low-income people, and provide whatever the federal government fails to provide. Remove barriers to education and training for public benefits recipients and other lowincome people. Given the strong link between educational attainment and earnings, lowincome people must be afforded the opportunity to participate in education and training that will improve their earning capacity. Integrate economic development and workforce development not only to ensure Illinois and Chicago are economically competitive in the global economy, but to produce skilled workers, in strong businesses, with good jobs that foster thriving communities. 2 Skogan, Wesley G., Dennis P. Rosenbaum, Susan M. Hartnett, Jill DuBois, Lisa Graziano, Cody Stephens, Chelsea Brown, Ashleigh Campi, Jarrett Feinstein, So Young Kim, Dukhong Kim, Sarah Rosenbaum, Steven Ryan, Barbara Seiden, and Institute for Police Research, Northwestern University & University of Illinois-Chicago. "CLEAR and I-CLEAR: A status report on New Information technology and its impact on management, the organization and crime-fighting strategies." Chicago Community Policing Evaluation Consortium February 2005, available at 3 Chicago won t use race profiling to discipline. Crime Control Digest. January 23,

5 II. Cultural Rights Article 27. Everyone has the right to freely participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and it's benefits. - Universal Declaration of Human Rights The genocidal impact of systemic anti-black racism is perpetuated across US institutions from the prison industrial complex, to the increasingly privatized public education system, to joblessness, homelessness, and the lack of adequate physical and mental health care. (Midwest Stakeholder's Report to the CERD, 2014). These systems are interdependent and mutually reinforce the marginalization and dehumanization of African descendants in Chicago, Illinois, and the nation. The historical and current attempts to erase and refute the rich cultural heritage of African descendants is a tactic which devalues a people and their contributions to society, while supporting the status quo of White supremacy. African American history, though mandated, is still not taught in the Chicago Public schools. The origins of civilization are misappropriated and attributed to European culture as opposed to teaching about the genius of ancient African culture. This is directly connected to the outcomes which we see in Chicago, IL and other urban and rural centers today. The deficit view of African culture is entrenched in schooling and the media. It feeds hatred and discrimination, as well as the hopelessness that a marginalized population may display as community violence amid crushing poverty, police brutality, and relentless de-humanization. The resulting and systemic discrimination based on race, allows the ruling class to deny African descendants have fundamentally cultural roots, while punishing the same. White domination of the education system omits the contributions, scholarship, and accomplishments of Black people from history books, performing arts exemplars, the media, and more. This exclusionary focus on European norms distorts and miseducates. It perpetuates fear and racism as it dehumanizes African descendants as inferior, and this supports the status quo. 5