ANALYSIS: Contract Review Shows Patchwork of Police Protections

Many police unions’ collective bargaining agreements in large U.S. cities grant police officers wide-ranging protections as part of the disciplinary process, based on Bloomberg Law’s analysis of more than 50 union contracts. These include the ability of officers to remove reprimands from their records, inspect their personnel files, and appeal decisions made on grievances.

Using Bloomberg Law’s Contract Library of more than 10,000 searchable collective bargaining agreements, our labor data research team scanned the text of CBAs covering police officers in 53 U.S. cities with populations more than 100,000. (Please note that Portland, Maine, in that search, unlike Portland, ...