Earning Trust: Addressing Police Misconduct Complaints in Connecticut

Police agencies in Connecticut routinely make it difficult for members of the public to file complaints of police misconduct, according to this 2017 report by the ACLU of Connecticut, a follow-up to our 2012 report on the same topic.

Drawn from online research and telephone surveys, “Earning Trust: Addressing Police Misconduct Complaints in Connecticut,” shows that many police agencies in the state fail to clearly post their complaint policies and forms online, refuse to accept anonymous complaints, and include threats of prosecution in their complaint intake protocols. In some cases, these obstacles violate state law and statewide police policy. Together, these barriers to transparency can undermine public trust in law enforcement.

To see how your police department performed in the ACLU-CT's survey, download our executive summary, full report, or the table of survey responses below.