A Human Right to Reparations: Black People against Police Torture and the Roots of the 2015 Chicago Reparations Ordinance

Abstract

On May 6, 2015, the Chicago City Council adopted legislation that formally sought to repair the damage wrought by a decades-long pattern of police torture. After months of careful negotiations between City Hall and the advocates for torture survivors, the council unanimously passed a package of laws providing for both financial and nonfinancial compensation, or reparations, for torture survivors and their families. While this package of laws limited financial compensation solely to the survivors of torture, it did extend nonfinancial compensation to them and their families in the form of free psychological counseling, job training, and college education, as well as inclusion of the torture cases in the public high school curriculum and a formal statement of remorse on behalf of the city. Drawing on the successful passage of this reparations legislation, this chapter identifies the intervention of the grassroots group Black People Against Police Torture (BPAPT) as pivotal in overcoming entrenched pro–law enforcement opposition to demands for accountability and redress. In particular, this article argues that the crucial contribution of BPAPT was its adoption of a strategic approach to international human rights law and institutions that prompted subsequent breakthroughs at the local, state, and federal level.