According to the Chicago Police Data Project, a large number of complaints go without further discipline or proper investigation in the Chicago police force. It is very common for leaders, such as the police supervisors or even the superintendent, to overlook the complaint, and automatically assume the side of the officer. Even the new COPA, formed to solve this issue, struggles with the political motivations of the staff, as noted by the Chicago Police Files article. Therefore, we are curious as to which allegations are investigated and for which disciplinary actions are taken; are they simply more serious, or does there exist a correlation between sustained allegations and particular demographics?

One driving factor for this was the recent traffic arrest of an African American Northwestern PhD student, which gained a lot of media attention. Is it possible that, in most cases, such a scenario would have been ignored with no disciplinary action taken had the individual not been a Northwestern student (i.e. someone with “higher” social standing)? We seek to explore the effect of demographics such as race, economic status, and geographic location on the likelihood of a complaint to receive disciplinary action.