Chicago paid out over $200 million due to police torture and now wants to go further

The City Made Reparations History in 2015

For nearly 20 years, Chicago police officers tortured Black men into confessing to crimes they didn’t commit. They used electric shock, suffocation, and mock executions at police headquarters on the South Side.

In 2015, Chicago became the first U.S. city to pay reparations for racially motivated police violence.

Now the city is studying whether it owes even more to Black residents for the lasting damage of slavery and segregation.

Burge Ran a Torture Ring for Two Decades

Commander Jon Burge and detectives under his command tortured over 120 people at Area 2 and 3 police headquarters between 1972 and 1991.

Nearly all the victims were Black men.

Officers used cattle prods on their genitals, suffocated them with plastic bags, staged mock executions with guns to their heads, and beat them with telephone books and rubber hoses.

The goal was to force confessions, and it worked. Victims signed whatever police put in front of them just to make the pain stop.

Tortured Men Spent Decades in Prison

The coerced confessions destroyed lives.

Darrell Cannon served 24 years after being tortured into confessing; his conviction was later overturned.

Anthony Holmes spent more than 30 years locked up for the crime he was tortured into confessing to and for subsequent offenses.

Some survivors died in prison before their cases were reviewed.

Chicago Has Spent Over $200 Million on the Scandal

The financial toll on taxpayers has been staggering.

As of 2022, Chicago had paid more than $130 million in settlements, judgments, and reparations to victims and their families. The total cost—including legal defense fees, special prosecutor investigations, and related expenses—has exceeded $210 million and continues to grow.

Meanwhile, Burge collected approximately $4,000 per month in police pension until his death in September 2018.

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled he could keep it despite his conviction.

Burge Only Served Four Years in Prison

The statute of limitations had expired on the torture itself, so federal prosecutors got creative.

In 2010, Burge was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying under oath in civil lawsuits when he denied ever torturing anyone. A federal judge sentenced him to four and a half years. He served his time at a federal prison in North Carolina, then finished his sentence at a halfway house near his Florida home.

He never faced charges for the actual torture.

Activists Took the Fight to the United Nations

When local officials refused to act, organizers went international.

In November 2014, a group called We Charge Genocide traveled to Geneva to present evidence to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. The U.N. responded with a report criticizing the United States for violating international bans on torture and specifically named the Chicago Police Department.

The pressure helped push Chicago toward the 2015 reparations ordinance after years of stalled progress in the City Council.

The 2015 Package Gave Survivors $100,000 Each

The reparations ordinance was passed unanimously on May 6, 2015.

It awarded $100,000 to each of 57 living survivors who could prove they were tortured by Burge or his officers, funded by a $5.5 million allocation. The package also included a formal apology from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council, free tuition at City Colleges for survivors and their families, priority access to job training and social services, and funding for a counseling center on the South Side.

Chicago Schools Now Teach About the Torture

One of the most unusual parts of the reparations package was a mandatory school curriculum.

Starting in 2017, all Chicago Public Schools students learn about the Burge torture cases in 8th and 10th grade.

The three-to-five week unit is called “Reparations Won.” Teachers can invite survivors to speak in their classrooms through the Chicago Torture Justice Center, giving students a firsthand account of what happened at Area 2 headquarters.

The Torture Justice Center Opened in 2017

The Chicago Torture Justice Center operates out of a city-owned building in Woodlawn at 6337 S. Woodlawn Avenue.

It provides counseling, trauma therapy, case management, and reentry support for survivors of police violence. The center started with a staff of five before the pandemic and now employs 17 people.

Services are free and open to anyone impacted by police violence, not just Burge-era survivors.

The Promised Memorial Took a Decade to Approve

The reparations ordinance included a public memorial, but two mayors let it stall. Rahm Emanuel never funded it. Lori Lightfoot didn’t either, despite a transition committee recommending she act within her first 100 days.

In December 2025, Mayor Brandon Johnson finally got the City Council to approve land in Washington Park for the memorial. The design by artists Patricia Nguyen and John Lee, titled “Breath, Form & Freedom,” features a winding hallway with the names of torture victims inscribed on the walls.

Construction is expected to begin in 2026.

Mayor Johnson Wants Broader Slavery Reparations

In June 2024, Johnson signed an executive order creating a 40-member Reparations Task Force to study the legacy of slavery in Chicago.

The rollout has faced delays—the original executive order called for a framework within 90 days and a public report within one year, but the administration acknowledged the 2025 budget process slowed progress.

Public applications for task force membership opened in April 2025, months behind schedule.

The task force will examine how discriminatory policies in housing, education, policing, and healthcare created lasting inequities for Black residents.

Members will hold public hearings, collect testimony, and develop recommendations, with officials now targeting Summer 2026 for completion.

The city set aside $500,000 in its 2024 budget to fund the study, marking the first time Chicago allocated taxpayer money for slavery reparations research.

Chicago Set the Standard for Police Reparations

No other American city has matched what Chicago did in 2015.

Evanston launched a housing-focused reparations program that is now facing a legal challenge from a conservative legal group.

San Francisco created a reparations fund framework in late 2025, though it has no allocated funding.

But Chicago remains the only municipality to provide comprehensive reparations for racially motivated police violence, complete with cash payments, education benefits, counseling services, a school curriculum, and a memorial.

The survivors who fought for decades made that happen.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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