Bargained Away: How Local and State Governments in Connecticut Have Bargained Away Police Accountability

Police violence and racism must not be protected – not by practice, not by law, and not by contract provisions bargained away by government negotiators who are supposed to represent the public.

After more than one year of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, the ACLU of Connecticut released a statewide study of police union contracts. “Bargained Away: How Local and State Governments in Connecticut Have Bargained Away Police Accountability,” focuses on the role that provisions in municipal and state police contracts play in shielding police employees from meaningful discipline when they harm people, lock towns into guaranteed year-over-year investments in policing, prevent transparency and accountability for police overall, and at times conflict with state laws. The report also includes recommended actions for municipal and state-level policymakers.

Below, you'll find a copy of that report. You'll also find all of the police contracts (also known as police collective bargaining agreements) that the ACLU of Connecticut was able to gather after multiple Freedom of Information requests to 102 police agencies in the state, including municipal, state-level, and special agency police.

To help navigate those contracts, you'll also find a chart outlining the status of the contracts. Some of the contracts below, for instance, are expired, which could indicate either that the police agency did not respond to FOI requests or that the agency was still negotiating at the time of our request. According to the most recent contracts that we were able to gather, at least 21 localities have police contracts set to expire in June 2020.