CHICAGO TORTURE JUSTICE CENTER

The first and only center dedicated to survivors of domestic torture in the U.S., the Chicago Torture Justice Center (CTJC) provides politicized healing and wellness services to individuals and communities impacted by police violence. The long movement demanding justice for systemic police brutality erupted at a national scale in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police, and we find ourselves in a time of continued political awakening. As institutions everywhere and at all levels continue to reckon with the reality of structural violence, we see CTJC as a testament to the radical change that can grow from bold imagination, and an example of what we can create together on the other side of abolition. Reparations for racialized state and structural violence are not only possible—CTJC is an embodiment of it.

One of the most documented movements to fight police violence occurred in Chicago over the span of 30 years. Under the command of Chicago Police Department Commander Jon Burge, over 120 people—predominantly Black men—were tortured from 1972-1991. Burge, a Vietnam War Veteran, used war torture interrogation tactics on detainees, such as racial epithets, electric shock, suffocation, and brutal beatings. The torture forced people to provide false confessions and survivors spent years, some decades, in prison. Some are still incarcerated today, but neither Commander Burge nor any officer under his command has been criminally charged with torture. Public officials at the City, County, and Federal level refused to take action to stop the torture although concrete evidence documented it.

On May 6, 2015, after decades of struggle, the Chicago City Council unanimously passed the Reparations Ordinance, making Chicago the first municipality in the U.S. to provide reparations for racially-motivated police violence. The Reparations Ordinance was one major step in repairing the wrongs committed by the City and CPD against the torture survivors and their respective communities. CTJC is the organization built from the community-led campaign to pass the Reparations Ordinance, and is tasked with creating a space of support, healing, and connection for survivors and their families.

Centering the wisdom of survivors, CTJC's politicized healing framework offers a multifaceted approach to meet the complex, necessary work of transformative justice for communities impacted by racialized state violence. The Center seeks to create change at the individual, community, and systems levels by restoring ourselves and connecting to others and what we care about, unapologetically exposing and deconstructing systems of harm, and building reparative power towards new paradigms we collectively imagine.

CTJC offers individual and group counseling, case management, and community wellness support in constant connection with organizing work to transform harmful systems that uphold racist and structural violence. Since before we opened in 2017, survivors have emphasized that CTJC is for anyone impacted by police violence—directly or indirectly. Our community includes formerly and currently incarcerated survivors of police violence and torture, their family members, families whose loved ones have been killed by police, and Chicagoans who live their daily lives under the threat of ongoing and targeted over-policing.

Our politicized healing approach affirms that our healing work is political, and our politics can be healing. Politicized healing offers a framework by which we heal ourselves and our communities, dismantle destructive systems of state violence that perpetuate trauma and disappear our loved ones, and create new possibilities. It will never be enough for CTJC to simply treat people for trauma and send them back into a world unchanged, where systems that uphold structural violence remain untouched.

In all of our work, we focus not on an end result but on the “how” – how are we fighting to create the world we envision? How can we care for people in the meantime, and how are they feeling in the process? We are guided by what we want to create on the other side of transformation for ourselves and our communities, and our impact offers a glimpse into those possibilities.

Survivors and family members have described being able to sleep through the night again or feeling connection after prolonged, deep isolation and grief as a result of CTJC programming. A CTJC staff member who is formerly incarcerated recently shared that his work with the Center enabled him to finally talk to his mother about the police violence he experienced decades ago. One CTJC clinician reported back about the impact of politicized healing support for one participant during an especially challenging time. In addition to receiving individual therapy through CTJC, this participant joined us for a community healing event we hosted in the Let Us Breathe Collective garden and reflected on the experience:

"The onset of COVID was followed by prolonged periods of isolation. For those suffering with grief and loss, depression soon followed. My spirit rejoiced over a session recently. One of our clients reports a renewed sense of connection with the world around her and she has recently engaged and participated in an event with Survivors and the broader community of concern. Although psychotherapy is a support, this event helped her turn a corner away from her despair, if not for just a few days. She was contacted by a member of our team, engaged in an event with community members, and reflected on her connection to the world around. Last year she experienced the greatest COVID casualty, the death of her mom. I just wanted to say thank you all, it takes a village of concern to create light in very dark places."

With so many survivors of police torture still incarcerated, we prioritize building meaningful and healing relationships with them while we work for their release. We've received beautiful messages of support—and, in some cases, donations—from incarcerated community members who feel invested in the growth and work of our community. Even from a distance, the connection we have built with them inspires and informs our daily work as well as our longer-term strategies. We continue to plan programming by correspondence with them for the immediate future, and we work for the day when we can welcome them through our doors.