Days after taking over as Chicago police interim superintendent, Charlie Beck suspended the department’s long-standing “merit” promotion process, halting in one swift step perhaps the single biggest irritant for many cops.
The system was created two decades ago for what seemed the loftiest of reasons — to promote officers not just based on who scores the highest on exams but reward those who might not test well and have proved their leadership skills to bosses from their work over the years.
It was sold as a way to confront the department’s racist and gender-biased history and ensure that people of color and women advanced into the department’s detective, sergeant and lieutenant ranks — and beyond.
But as many had feared from the start, it did little to combat charges of cronyism in how the department made promotions.
“It just opened the floodgates to political interference,” Chuck Wexler, a national policing expert, told the Chicago Tribune last week. “There is a thing in Chicago. … It’s ‘the phone call.'”
The controversial plan also appears to have failed at its goal to diversify the ranks. As of July 2019, African American and Hispanic officers combined held just about 30 percent of the supervisory positions, according to the latest figures from the 13,400-member department.
Beck’s bold move now begs a critical question as the department attempts to carry out a court-mandated overhaul of its policies and practices — can Chicago create a promotions system so that the best and brightest officers — of all backgrounds — advance up the ranks?
Just as frustration grew with the merit plan, promotional exams languished as well. The city allowed years to pass between tests. Up until recently, the department promoted detectives off an approximately 10-year-old test, for instance.
Worse yet, officers held little faith in the integrity of the testing because of suspicions of widespread cheating.
In an interview Friday at police headquarters, Beck, a surprise pick as interim superintendent by Mayor Lori Lightfoot after nine years as Los Angeles’ police chief, outlined the department’s new exam procedure — in the works for more than a year as a result of the federal court decree. The testing went into effect just this past weekend as thousands of officers took the sergeants exam. Those who pass the written exam will undergo interviews that will be scored by experts who work in law enforcement outside Illinois, according to department officials.
Beck said the new testing procedure, combined with a rigorous exam schedule, will point Chicago toward realizing a smarter, better trained and more professional department — the goals of the extensive policing reforms required under the consent decree.
“We have to prepare our people for success,” said Beck, who took over the department sooner than expected after Lightfoot fired Superintendent Eddie Johnson early this month. “We have to have regular promotional exams with a regular cadence of study so that people have legitimate reason to understand the rules and laws that govern them within policing.”
‘Easier to get a law degree’
The irony of the merit promotion system was that it was originally intended to root out cronyism.
It was established in the late 1990s under the Mayor Richard M. Daley administration after decades of litigation and frustration over how to promote cops in a way that was fair to both African American and white officers.
Daley championed the system as an effort to diversify the supervisory ranks of the department with more people of color and to promote ambitious officers who did not test well. At that time, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, feared the process would be used by politicians to promote their pals.
Today, most big city police departments don’t rely on merit for promotions to the ranks of sergeants, lieutenants and captains, according to Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum based in Washington, D.C.
Under the system just suspended by Beck, up to 30% of promotions for sergeant or lieutenant resulted from merit; 20 percent for detectives.
Members of the department’s command staff could nominate individuals who had passed the promotions’ exams. Candidates then submitted applications to a selection committee made up of department brass.
The deliberations on who would be given merit promotions, however, weren’t made public. The lack of transparency contributed to suspicions about the qualifications of many of those promoted.
A 2017 report from the U.S. Department of Justice that assailed Chicago’s policing practices from top to bottom in the wake of the fatal shooting of black teen Laquan McDonald by an officer faulted the Police Department’s leadership for its secrecy with merit-based promotions.
“For example, officers are unaware of the metrics used to evaluate individuals who are nominated for merit promotions, or why the officers receiving those promotions were selected,” the report said. “By not sharing this information publicly, and not ensuring Department-wide understanding of the promotions system, CPD has perpetuated an atmosphere of doubt around the promotions process as a whole.”
Several officers who declined to be identified for this story because the department did not authorize them to speak to the Tribune said the entire promotions process has been corrupted whether those in higher ranks got there through merit or test scores.
While the merit system might have been well-intended, said one veteran detective who won promotion because of his test score, “people who have connections got rewarded.”
Hardworking officers often found themselves stuck, unable to advance, despite years toiling in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.
One North Side supervisor who received a merit promotion agreed that “work ethic” should be a factor in who’s promoted.
“Why wouldn’t you promote someone who went above and beyond?” said a South Side supervisor who also garnered a merit promotion.
Many of those promoted through merit have been well-deserving, the officers agreed, but the label often carries a taint that they didn’t fairly earn their rank.
But even those who advance after scoring high on tests sometimes aren’t qualified, officers said, because of widespread suspicions that some test-takers had access to the questions ahead of time and that simply performing well on exams doesn’t mean success as a supervisor.
“We have some of the worst police officers on the job who took a test, (passed) that test and got promoted,” said the South Side supervisor.
‘How’d that go?’
Wexler, who has done extensive work in Chicago, said the Police Department “stands alone” with its infrequent promotions testing — another issue that the next permanent superintendent will need to address.
“The No. 1 question I would ask the next superintendent is how are you going to fix the promotional system?” he said. “Most departments will give an exam every few years.”
Wexler pointed to an unfortunate side effect of the wide gaps in testing dates — a department that offers very generous tuition reimbursements does not test often enough to allow officers to use their city-funded educations.
“You get in a car with a cop in Chicago, and it’s not unusual they have an MBA, some have Ph.D.s,” he said. “You have really intentioned, smart people who like anyone … want to advance. But the exam is not given. … It is easier to get a law degree than it is to become a sergeant.”
In his interview with the Tribune, Beck called regular testing critical because it encourages officers to put “energy in becoming better prepared to be promoted.”
He also advocated department-sponsored career development efforts to help officers who struggle at test-taking.
When a reporter asked about the hope that merit promotions would have helped diversify the department, Beck interjected, asking, “How’d that go?”
A consistent and trusted promotional system should address diversity concerns by encouraging all officers to apply — and avoiding political influence at the same time, he said.
“I think the better way is to devise testing that is fair, that gets you the kind of results that you want. And those kind of tests are available,” Beck said. “There’s many departments that have achieved diversity throughout their ranks without using the merit system.”
asweeney@chicagotribune.com
jgorner@chicagotribune.com