“Missing in Chicago”

Chicago-based nonprofits City Bureau and the Invisible Institute conducted a two-year investigation into the mishandling of missing person cases by the Chicago Police Department. This act of negligence disproportionately impacts Black women and girls.

Sarah Conway and Trina Reynolds-Tyler produced a seven-part investigative series tracking the many missteps made in these cases. Their work highlighted how poor police data makes the problem harder to solve.

The investigation grew out of Beneath the Surface, a groundbreaking data journalism project spearheaded by the Invisible Institute’s director of data, Reynolds-Tyler. That project identified patterns of misconduct in missing persons cases. Conway and Reynolds-Tyler embarked on a deeper examination of this pattern, examining how police mistreated family members making reports about their missing loved ones.

The duo analyzed more than one million records, interviewing over 40 sources to uncover how police handled these missing person cases, particularly those of Black women and girls. The reporters investigated discrepancies in official police data and poor data-handling methodology. They found several instances where the records misrepresented the nature of the incident – many were noted as noncriminal when police actually initiated a homicide investigation in connection to the case. Conway and Reynolds-Tyler noted that the missing persons report is one of the last paper reports used by Chicago police. They also found that more than 45% of these cases are missing key data points about the time and date police arrived to investigate them.

Thanks to Conway and Reynolds-Tyler’s meticulous reporting, the number of official homicides found within 21 years’ worth of missing persons data more than doubled. The reporters have presented their findings to various advocacy groups, including the Illinois Task Force on Missing and Murdered Chicago Women, which will use those findings to help inform future state policy.

Article by: Leyla Shokoohe