Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor who has talked to hundreds of residents in neighborhoods with a deeply rooted distrust of police while studying misconduct by officers for years, said he believes even greater numbers of people don't bother with the initial step of filing a complaint because they have little faith that meaningful discipline will be imposed.

"I don't know what the complainant gets out of it at the end of the day," Futterman said. "... The complainant isn't going to get, 'Here's a medal for what you did for exposing this corruption' or anything like that. It's a hassle. ... It's a kind of second thought, like, 'Whoa, do I really want to sign an affidavit? Do I really want to go and follow up after this when there's little chance that anything's ever going to come of this?'"

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