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 – Season 5 – Season 6 – Season 7

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 fourth 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 four police killings

Chicago P.D. at least partially resolves three of season four’s twenty-three episodes with the police killing the person they are criminalizing, killing seven people along the way. The amount of people killed by any particular cop in season four 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 “The Silos” 21 Sep 2016	0	No	N/A
E2 “Made A Wrong Turn” 28 Sep 2016	1	Yes	Halstead
E3 “All Cylinders Firing” 5 Oct 2016	0	No	N/A
E4 “Big Friends, Big Enemies” 12 Oct 2016	0	No	N/A
E5 “A War Zone” 26 Oct 2016	0	No	N/A
E6 “Some Friend” 9 Nov 2016	0	No	N/A
E7 “300,000 Likes” 16 Nov 2016	0	No	N/A
E8 “A Shot Heard Round the World” 16 Nov 2016	1	Yes	Alinsky
E9 “Don’t Bury This Case” 28 Nov 2016	0	No	N/A
E10 “Don’t Read the News” 4 Jan 2017	0	No	N/A
E11 “You Wish” 11 Jan 2017	1	No	Rent-a-cop
E12 “Sanctuary” 18 Jan 2017	0	No	N/A
E13 “I Remember Her Now” 8 Feb 2017	0	No	N/A
E14 “Seven Indictments” 15 Feb 2017	0	No	N/A
E15 “Favor, Affection, Malice or Ill-Will” 22 Feb 2017	2	Yes	Atwater (1), Rixton (1)
E16 “Emotional Proximity” 1 Mar 2017	0	No	N/A
E17 “Remember the Devil” 22 Mar 2017	0	No	N/A
E18 “Little Bit of Light” 29 Mar 2017	0	No	N/A
E19 “Last Minute Resistance” 5 Apr 2017	1	No	Guy suicides surrounded by police
E20 “Grasping for Salvation” 26 Apr 2017	0	No	N/A
E21 “Fagin” 3 May 2017	1	No	Lindsay
E22 “Army of One” 10 May 2017	0	No	N/A
E23 “Fork In The Road” 17 May 2017	0	No	N/A

The Chicago police department kills someone they criminalize in 26% of the season four episodes killing seven people along the way, a low number compared to prior season. 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	4	1 (2), 2 (1), 4 (1)
Halstead	9	1 (1), 2 (3), 3 (4), 4 (1)
Ruzek	3	1 (1), 2 (1), 3 (1)
Dawson	7	1 (3), 2 (2), 3 (2)
Burgess	2	1 (1), 2 (1)
Atwater	3	2 (1), 3 (1), 4 (1)
Lindsay	6	3 (5), 4 (1)

The only main cast character to not kill somebody in the first four seasons is Platt and Rixton, depsite being on the show only six episodes as a guest star, has time to kill someone.

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 fourth season presents a radically different picture of police violence than the material world offers. The CPD in season fourth pursues predominantly white people. The table below shows the demographics.

Episode name/date	Racialization of who the cops criminalize	Episode notes
E1 “The Silos” 21 Sep 2016	White
E2 “Made A Wrong Turn” 28 Sep 2016	Black	Black people deal drugs, kidnap and rape white women
E3 “All Cylinders Firing” 5 Oct 2016	White
E4 “Big Friends, Big Enemies” 12 Oct 2016	Latinx	Latinxs and Black people are gang members
E5 “A War Zone” 26 Oct 2016	Asian	Asians are drug smugglers
E6 “Some Friend” 9 Nov 2016	Black, white	Black people are pimps
E7 “300,000 Likes” 16 Nov 2016	White
E8 “A Shot Heard Round the World” 16 Nov 2016	White	Black people are gang members
E9 “Don’t Bury This Case” 28 Nov 2016	White
E10 “Don’t Read the News” 4 Jan 2017	Black	Black criminality as punishment for white racists
E11 “You Wish” 11 Jan 2017	White
E12 “Sanctuary” 18 Jan 2017	White	Black people are gang members
E13 “I Remember Her Now” 8 Feb 2017	White
E14 “Seven Indictments” 15 Feb 2017	White	Black people and latinx are gang members
E15 “Favor, Affection, Malice or Ill-Will” 22 Feb 2017	Latinx, white	Black people and latinx are gang members
E16 “Emotional Proximity” 1 Mar 2017	White
E17 “Remember the Devil” 22 Mar 2017	White
E18 “Little Bit of Light” 29 Mar 2017	White
E19 “Last Minute Resistance” 5 Apr 2017	White
E20 “Grasping for Salvation” 26 Apr 2017	White	Black cop is crooked
E21 “Fagin” 3 May 2017	Black	Black children are gang members
E22 “Army of One” 10 May 2017	White
E23 “Fork In The Road” 17 May 2017	White

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 four episodes. In each, the reference or entire story is about 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 four.

Chicago P.D. mentions Black people as part of the plot in ten season four episodes. In all Black people are associated with criminality, usually gangs. In one episode, “Made a Wrong Turn”, Black neighborhoods are dangerous geographies and Black people are gang members except one who kidnaps and rapes white women from the suburbs. Another episode, “Grasping for Salvation’,  introduces Denny Woods, one of Voight’s former partners who is a crooked cop that frames people. The episode asks us to believe that Voight – the cop who tortures and frames people modeled after Jon Burge – is the one who frees Black men framed up by the police. A further episode, “Don’t Read the News”, has Voight threatening a man who specializes in violence against Black people with being jailed next to Black people. This proposes Black criminality and white innocence so inherent that even a white person who specifically preys on Black people will fall prey to Black people criminalized for any number of reasons, a version of the familiar cop show trope where the police use mass incarceration of Black people as ‘just desserts’ for the white nationalists they occasionally jail alongside them.

The episode “Fagin” has Voight hunting a Black man previously shot by the police causing a permanent disability and who received a large financial settlement. The man, designed after Charles Dickens’ anti-semitic caricature Fagin from Oliver Twist as per the episode title, runs a crew of Black children as violent bank robbers which, in the context of Black Captivity and Chicago P.D.‘s field of meaning of Black criminality, is supposed to be a plausible story.

The only season three reference to Asian people has them as drug smugglers akin to Triads the same as earlier seasons.

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 four. “Grasping for Salvation” begins a multi-story, multi-season arc that introducing Denny Woods as a perpetual thorn in the side of Voight and his Intelligence Division. 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 “The Silos” 21 Sep 2016	No	N/A
E2 “Made A Wrong Turn” 28 Sep 2016	Yes	Voight threatens to electrocute a man in a bathtub and have a dog attack a homeless man with a dog while he laughs. He knocks a man off a chair, steals his laptop while Alinsky threatens him as he lies in pain
E3 “All Cylinders Firing” 5 Oct 2016	Yes	Platt tortures a man
E4 “Big Friends, Big Enemies” 12 Oct 2016	Yes	Voight chokes and beats a handcuffed man
E5 “A War Zone” 26 Oct 2016	Yes	Voight beats a man
E6 “Some Friend” 9 Nov 2016	Yes	Voight threatens to shoot a man to extract information. Alinsky threatens a man with a bat to extract information
E7 “300,000 Likes” 16 Nov 2016	No	N/A
E8 “A Shot Heard Round the World” 16 Nov 2016	No	N/A
E9 “Don’t Bury This Case” 28 Nov 2016	Yes	Voight beats a detained man and slams someone’s head against a car to extract info. He & Alinsky kidnap and gag a woman to coerce cooperation
E10 “Don’t Read the News” 4 Jan 2017	No	N/A
E11 “You Wish” 11 Jan 2017	No	N/A
E12 “Sanctuary” 18 Jan 2017	Yes	Voight tortures a man to coerce a confession and again after the confession
E13 “I Remember Her Now” 8 Feb 2017	No	N/A
E14 “Seven Indictments” 15 Feb 2017	No	N/A
E15 “Favor, Affection, Malice or Ill-Will” 22 Feb 2017	Yes	Voight throws a guy over  a counter to extract information. Halstead beats a man with a flashlight. Voight grabs a man by his broken nose to extract information
E16 “Emotional Proximity” 1 Mar 2017	Yes	Voight chokes, slams into a wall and threatens to kill someone to extract information. He later beats a man to coerce a confession.
E17 “Remember the Devil” 22 Mar 2017	Yes	Voight stabs a woman to extract information
E18 “Little Bit of Light” 29 Mar 2017	No	N/A
E19 “Last Minute Resistance” 5 Apr 2017	Yes	Voight chokes a man and exiles him under penalty of death
E20 “Grasping for Salvation” 26 Apr 2017	Yes	Voight beats a man to coerce a confession
E21 “Fagin” 3 May 2017	No	N/A
E22 “Army of One” 10 May 2017	Yes	Lindsay pistol whips and threatens to kill someone to extract info
E23 “Fork In The Road” 17 May 2017	Yes	Alinsky and Halstead deny a man medical treatment to extract information

Chicago P.D. tortures the people it criminalizes in fourteen out of twenty-three season four episodes (61%). Season four 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

In “I Remember Her Now”, Voight and crew look into an institution where young girls are being assaulted by at least one male guard after one girl dies. It is not the violent guards who put the girls at risk but another young girl who is turning out her peers. Here the violence sex workers face is not from the institutions that marginalize, criminalize and institutionalize violence against them, but from other sex workers. It’s another example of how institutions that marginalize people cannot reflect upon the dangers they present to the populations they criminalize and marginalize.

Chicago P.D. does not make significant use of the Ticking Time Bomb, carceral ableism or several other cop show tropes in season four. 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.