Thanks to Zoë Samudzi and Briana Ureña-Ravelo for feedback on parts of what follows. Deeply influential but not directly cited below are Sylvia Wynter on the idea of The Human and Che Gossett‘s years of twitter musings on humanity/animality along with decades of Black feminist abolitionist visions and critiques, especially the works of Ruth Wilson-Gilmore, Mariame Kaba and Angela Davis. Credit for anything useful below is theirs. Feedback – constructive, destructive and other – welcome.

Season 1 – Season 2 – Season 3 – Season 4

Chicago P.D. is a police drama produced by Wolf Entertainment running on NBC since 2014 with an ensemble cast structure centered around Hank Voight (Jason Beghe). The show tells fictional stories of the Chicago Police Department’s Intelligence Division as they try to incarcerate or kill people they criminalize.[1] It has single episode story lines with regular longer arcs or recurring story elements mixed in. Chicago P.D. mixes elements of a police drama and procedural with the procedural aspects focusing on torture. Its program is lionizing John Burge – albeit not by name and likely unthought – where the Chicago police coerce confessions through torture in semi-official locations, “The Cage” in Chicago P.D.. The show portrays the killer cops as heroic and their violences practical through gritty dialogue, Beghe’s gravely voice and quick trigger, the cops’ connections to criminalized populations that frame them as criminally knowledgeable and grounded and the decision to use handheld cameras for a more kinetic feel.

Chicago P.D. is competently acted for the most part and decently shot. It has mostly coherent storylines and good pacing which would make it well scripted were it not for so many character tropes and bad dialogue. Its main drawbacks are not technical, but ethical. Chicago P.D., even by the low standards of cop shows, stands out for how warmly it embraces murderous cops and torture. Its heroes are at times portrayed ambiguously but are, like its closest predecessor The Shield, still virtuous protagonists. The horrors they enact and all their violences are towards supposedly noble ends.

Below are data tables that look at how frequently various things happen in the third season’s stories. Many of the categories reflect things seen in other cop shows too. Others are more unique to Chicago P.D. or useful only with lots of other context. For each table I try to offer context in the surrounding annotations. Some categories that are useful in other cops shows or even different seasons of the same show are not always applicable to others so this data overview will have tables others do not and vice versa.

Season three police killings

Chicago P.D. at least partially resolves seven of season three’s twenty-three episodes with the police killing the person they are criminalizing, killing eightteen people along the way. The amount of people killed by any particular cop in season three is only slightly remarkable. But the totals over the whole series show that most Chicago P.D. main cast characters are serial killers. For example in “Called in Dead”, Alinsky (Elias Koteas) says that he’s killed seven people to that date (three in the show to that point, the others from before the show starts). They are what the title character from Dexter is just lacking the self-awareness. More troubling is how Chicago P.D. normalizes police shootings as heroic outcomes as explored below the table.

Episode name/date	Killed by police	Episode resolved via suspect’s death	Criminalized person killed by
E1 “Life is Fluid” 30 Sep 2015	2	Yes	Lindsay (2)
E2 “Natural Born Storyteller” 7 Oct 2015	1	Yes	Halstead
E3 “Actual Physical Violence” 14 Oct 2015	0	No	N/A
E4 “Debts of the Past” 21 Oct 2015	0	No	N/A
E5 “Climbing Into Bed” 28 Oct 2015	1	No	Ruzek
E6 “You Never Know Who’s Who” 28 Oct 2015	1	No	Dawson
E7 “A Dead Kid, a Notebook and a Lot of Maybes” 4 Nov 2015	0	No	N/A
E8 “Forget My Name” 11 Nov 2015	1	No	Halstead
E9 “Never Forget I Love You” 28 Nov 2015	2	Yes	Voight (1), Roman (1)
E10 “Now I’m God” 6 Jan 2016	0	No	N/A
E11 “Knocked the Family Right Out” 13 Jan 2016	1	Yes	Halstead
E12 “Looking Out For Stateville” 20 Jan 2016	2	No	Lindsay (1), Deputized snitch (1)
E13 “Hit Me” 3 Feb 2016	0	No	N/A
E14 “The Song of Gregory William Yates” 10 Feb 2016	1	Yes	Lindsay
E15 “A Night Owl” 17 Feb 2016	3	Yes	Voight (1), Dawson (1), Lindsay (1)
E16 “The Cases That Needed to be Solved” 24 Feb 2016	0	No	N/A
E17 “Forty Caliber Bread Crumb” 2 Mar 2016	1	No	Halstead
E18 “Casual With A K” 23 Mar 2016	1	No	Atwater
E19 “If We Were Normal” 30 March 2016	0	No	N/A
E20 “It’s a Duffel Bag” 4 May 2016	0	No	N/A
E21 “Justice” 11 May 2016	0	No	N/A
E22 “She’s Got Us” 18 May 2016	0	No	N/A
E23 “Start Digging” 25 May 2016	1	Yes	Voight

The Chicago police department kills someone they criminalize in 57% of the season three episodes. Chicago P.D. is not directly responsible for material world police shootings but it, like all cop shows, plays a role in (re)producing public support for police violence through discursive illustration. It offers an imaginary heroic police violence. It relies on an audience that accepts these outcomes as palatable or else it would be read as the sadistic horror it is or, possibly, the audience would be aware of their enjoyment of sadistic horror. In Weber’s description of the state as the claimant to a monopoly over legitimate violence, Chicago P.D. normalizing police violence is the same as normalizing the state itself. The audience receiving these stories as heroic is part of statism; the organization of sociality around monopolies over legitimate violence.

Series Police Killings Running Totals by Main Cast Characters

Character	Number of people they’ve executed	(How many) in each season
Voight	8	1 (3), 2 (2), 3 (3)
Alinsky	3	1 (2), 2 (1)
Halstead	8	1 (1), 2 (3), 3 (4)
Ruzek	3	1 (1), 2 (1), 3 (1)
Dawson	7	1 (3), 2 (2), 3 (2)
Burgess	2	1 (1), 2 (1)
Atwater	2	2 (1), 3 (1)
Lindsay	5	3 (5)

The only main cast character to not kill somebody in the first three seasons is Platt.

Who do the cops pursue?

But to what end is the monopolized, legitimatized violence deployed? Chicago P.D. produces stories that portray the U.S. carceral system as not being built around Black Captivity. It tells stories of Black Captivity often without Black people. This is not a disavowal of Black criminality nor white innocence. It still narrates through Black criminality, often explicitly as when Voigt coerces gang member snitches. Instead it relies on Black Captivity being grammatical to the viewing audience. Audiences bring the knowledge of Black Captivity and mass incarceration to the show already. It doesn’t have to be said when it is the framework through which the audience understands the concept of prisons. So when Chicago P.D. represents cops criminalizing mostly non-Black people as their universe, it still does so through Black Captivity.

Chicago P.D.‘s third season presents a radically different picture of police violence than the material world offers. The CPD in season three pursues predominantly white people. The table below shows the demographics.

Episode name/date	Racialization of who the cops criminalize	Episode notes
E1 “Life is Fluid” 30 Sep 2015	Black	Black people are gang members
E2 “Natural Born Storyteller” 7 Oct 2015	White	N/A
E3 “Actual Physical Violence” 14 Oct 2015	White	Muslims are “hajis” who attack USians
E4 “Debts of the Past” 21 Oct 2015	White, non-Black latinx	N/A
E5 “Climbing Into Bed” 28 Oct 2015	White	N/A
E6 “You Never Know Who’s Who” 28 Oct 2015	White	N/A
E7 “A Dead Kid, a Notebook and a Lot of Maybes” 4 Nov 2015	White	Black people in respectability politics
E8 “Forget My Name” 11 Nov 2015	White, Afrolatinx, Black	Iraqis are terrorists, Black people are gang members, corrupt cops
E9 “Never Forget I Love You” 28 Nov 2015	White	N/A
E10 “Now I’m God” 6 Jan 2016	White	N/A
E11 “Knocked the Family Right Out” 13 Jan 2016	White	N/A
E12 “Looking Out For Stateville” 20 Jan 2016	White	N/A
E13 “Hit Me” 3 Feb 2016	White, Black	Black people are criminals
E14 “The Song of Gregory William Yates” 10 Feb 2016	White	N/A
E15 “A Night Owl” 17 Feb 2016	White	N/A
E16 “The Cases That Needed to be Solved” 24 Feb 2016	Black	Black people are gang members
E17 “Forty Caliber Bread Crumb” 2 Mar 2016	White	Latinxs are cartel members
E18 “Casual With A K” 23 Mar 2016	White	N/A
E19 “If We Were Normal” 30 March 2016	White	N/A
E20 “It’s a Duffel Bag” 4 May 2016	White	Black people are bad parents
E21 “Justice” 11 May 2016	Black	Black honor students are killers
E22 “She’s Got Us” 18 May 2016	White	N/A
E23 “Start Digging” 25 May 2016	White	Black people are drug dealers

In Arabs and Muslims in the Media Evelyn Alsultany describes a “field of meaning” beyond simple ideas of representation. She writes:

The critical cultural studies approach that I employ strategically privileges the analysis of ideological work performed by images and story lines, as opposed to reading an image as negative or positive, and therefore gets us beyond reading a positive image as if it will eliminate stereotyping. If we interpret an image as either positive or negative, then we can conclude that the problem of racial stereotyping is over because of the appearance of sympathetic images of Arabs and Muslims during the War on Terror. However, an examination in relation to its narrative context reveals how it participates in a larger field of meaning about Arabs and Muslims. The notion of a field of meaning, or an ideological field, is a means to encompass the range of acceptable ideas about the War on Terror.

Here I use this “field of meaning” to look at how Chicago P.D. ties racialized subject positions to specific racist types. So in keeping with Alsultany’s focus, how often are Arabs and Muslims story lines not articulated to terrorism? As in, does Chicago P.D. allow Arabs and Muslims to have meaning that is not tied to terrorism?

Chicago P.D. mentions latinx people as part of the plot in three season three episodes. In each, the reference or entire story is about narcotrafficantes or gangs. There is not a single story arc to the contrary. This is Chicago P.D.‘s entire field of meaning for latinxs – specifically non-Black latinxs – in season three.

Chicago P.D. mentions Black people as part of the plot in eight season three episodes. In all but one, the Black characters are articulated to drug or gang stories or bad parenting. The exception is where Atwater is impressed by a crew of high status Black men in the police or fire departments. Gangs, drug dealers and bad parenting are Black people’s field of meaning in season three, each playing into a well defined imagery of Black criminality.

The season three episode “Justice” is the first in the series to involve courtroom dramatics as part of the storyline. Episode opens with Burgess and Roman kissing in their patrol car when someone shoots at them. Burgess chases someone she cannot identify then nor later into an alley and shoots a Black child. The child is an honor student not yet tracked by the police. The entire court drama constructs Burgess’ innocence in shooting this Black child. The episode makes references to Chicago cops killing Black teenager Laquan McDonald as the reason Burgess is facing skepticism, not because she shot a Black teenager. It works quite hard to justify cops killing Black people and in the end blames the child’s anti-cop sentiment for him wanting to shoot at Burgess and Roman. It further uses the child’s honor student status to dunk on respectability politics but not from a Black liberation perspective, instead to justify anti-Blackness. The episode concludes by walking on an unnamed Black character never seen before or since in the series to announce indicting the child for shooting Roman.

Both season three episodes that mentions Arabs or Muslims, both just in passing, are references to terrorism.

Big Hero vs. Big Villain storytelling

Chicago P.D. regularly uses a cop show trope I’m calling Big Hero vs. Big Villain but only once in season three. “The Song of Gregory William Yates” concludes a multi-story, multi-season arc that crosses over another Wolf Entertainment-produced show, Law & Order: SVU with Lindsay executing Yates. Big Hero vs. Big Villain are story arcs where the police are less systemic violence’s agents and more individuals in contest with others. Big Hero vs. Big Villain can include a systemic framework as in The Wire‘s story lines of McNulty vs. the Barksdale Crew or Stringer Bell. Chicago P.D. does not do this in a meaningful way. Instead its Big Hero vs. Big Villain stories act as personal quests, deeply personal battles and redemption arcs for its protagonists and adds a level of illegibility to the people the CPD pursues through making their motivations more arbitrary.

Heroic portrayals of torture and police brutality

Chicago P.D. embraces police torturing people like no other show on television. The closest is Supernatural where the Winchester brothers frequently torture ‘demons’ towards various ends, usually to extract information. But torture isn’t central to their characters. It is for Voight in Chicago P.D. and, to a lesser extent, Alinsky. Chicago P.D. portrays torture as heroic in either how the heroes do the torturing or torture is a successful tactic, usually both. It is so common that it must be either convincing or have an already convinced audience. If it did not, much like the above police killings, the audience would receive it as the sadistic horror it is.

Episode name/date	Is there torture/police brutality?	What happens
E1 “Life is Fluid” 30 Sep 2015	No	N/A
E2 “Natural Born Storyteller” 7 Oct 2015	Yes	Dawson beats a man during interrogation
E3 “Actual Physical Violence” 14 Oct 2015	Yes	Halstead questions a man with a gun under his chin. Voight beats a detained man with a crowbar
E4 “Debts of the Past” 21 Oct 2015	Yes	Alinsky beats a man as punishment. Voight beats and threatens a man.
E5 “Climbing Into Bed” 28 Oct 2015	Yes	Alinsky drowns a man to extract information
E6 “You Never Know Who’s Who” 28 Oct 2015	No	N/A
E7 “A Dead Kid, a Notebook and a Lot of Maybes” 4 Nov 2015	No	N/A
E8 “Forget My Name” 11 Nov 2015	No	N/A
E9 “Never Forget I Love You” 28 Nov 2015	No	N/A
E10 “Now I’m God” 6 Jan 2016	No	N/A
E11 “Knocked the Family Right Out” 13 Jan 2016	Yes	Voight chokes and threatens a man to extract a confession
E12 “Looking Out For Stateville” 20 Jan 2016	No	N/A
E13 “Hit Me” 3 Feb 2016	No	N/A
E14 “The Song of Gregory William Yates” 10 Feb 2016	No	N/A
E15 “A Night Owl” 17 Feb 2016	No	N/A
E16 “The Cases That Needed to be Solved” 24 Feb 2016	Yes	Voight beats a handcuffed man to extract information
E17 “Forty Caliber Bread Crumb” 2 Mar 2016	Yes	Halstead beats someone to extract information and later steps on a man’s throat
E18 “Casual With A K” 23 Mar 2016	Yes	Voight exiles someone from Chicago upon penalty of death
E19 “If We Were Normal” 30 March 2016	Yes	Voight smacks and chokes a detainee. Alinsky later threatens to kill him
E20 “It’s a Duffel Bag” 4 May 2016	Yes	Voight chokes a detainee
E21 “Justice” 11 May 2016	No	N/A
E22 “She’s Got Us” 18 May 2016	Yes	Voight and Alinsky threaten to electrocute detainee
E23 “Start Digging” 25 May 2016	Yes	Voight puts a man’s head on a burner to extract info. Voight shoots a man in the leg to extract info

Chicago P.D. tortures the people it criminalizes in twelve out of twenty-three season three episodes (52%). Season three continues using “The Cage”, a location where the unit takes people to torture them. No character offers any meaningful dissent to these actions. Chicago P.D. portrays Voight torturing people as not only ethical, but effective. I aspire to abolition in this writing and am not concerned with “innocent” people being imprisoned so much as doing away with the prisons altogether. “Innocent” is not an ethics counterpoint to “guilty” when the supposedly “guilty” are victims of state violence, not necessarily causers of harm. With that said, Friedrich Spee noted in his 1631 text Cautio Criminalis that “Torture has the power to create witches where none exist.” He continued, critiquing witchhunting advocates noting that “every one of their teachings concerning witches is based on no other foundations than fables or confessions extracted through torture.”

Real world Chicago police have long engaged in torture and Voight and his unit bear strong resemblance to Jon Burge, a highly decorated Chicago cop who coerced confessions by torturing, primarily, Black people his unit kidnapped off the street. Spee loudly critiqued torture as producing no useful information in the early 1600s and studies ever since have agreed with him. Given this, Chicago P.D. in over half of season three episodes is naming witches “based on no other foundations than fables or confessions extracted through torture.” There is no reason to think anybody tortured by Voight’s unit or implicated by the tortured even did the thing they were accused of. Abolition says “Don’t hunt witches in the first place.” That is the important question. Even with that understanding, Chicago P.D. portrays the most harmful method of witchhunting in its firm support for torture and police brutality. Instead of the usual police apologia that killer cops are bad apples not reflective of the system, the show argues that the killer cops are actually the good apples.

Other cop show tropes

Chicago P.D. does not make significant use of the Ticking Time Bomb, carceral ableism or several other cop show tropes in season three. Further seasons will illuminate more themes. Feedback appreciated. Thanks for reading.

[1] I say “or kill” due to Chicago P.D. frequently resolving storylines by killing the suspect. This occurs far too often to consider it anything other than an expected outcome for the showrunners.