Book Review: “Beyond the Usual Beating”

Andrew S. Baer’s Beyond the Usual Beating: The Jon Burge Police Torture Scandal and Social Movements for Police Accountability in Chicago is a beautifully crafted and deeply disturbing account that offers raw insight into the covert activities of the notorious Areas 2 and 3 of the Chicago Police Department. Baer documents how white detectives, led by Jon Burge, routinely used inhumane and militarized torture strategies such as electrocution, suffocation, and beatings to extract confessions from Black suspects. The scandal’s horror lies not just in the brutality itself, but in how the entire criminal justice system sustained and protected it. Supervisors, prosecutors, public defenders, and judges were aware of the torture yet remained silent because coerced confessions helped close cases. Baer roots these acts in a long history of racial bias, showing how detectives’ upbringing, experiences, and prejudices shaped a system that treated Black suspects as disposable.

Baer structures the book into six chapters, grouped into two parts. Part I traces the roots of the torture regime, both biographically and institutionally. The first chapter details Jon Burge’s (Burge) childhood in Chicago, his deployment to Vietnam, and how both his personal history and a generational backlash against deindustrialization, racial transition, and crime shaped his worldview. By the time Burge returned from Vietnam, where he likely witnessed or participated in prisoner abuse, the lines between military and policing tactics were already blurred.

Chapter two shows how Burge’s personal biases were institutionalized. Joining the Chicago Police Department in 1970 and promoted to detective by 1972, Burge operated within an environment that privileged brutality over investigative rigor. Detectives extracted confessions through electric shocks, mock executions, and suffocation. Baer grounds this in testimonies like that of Anthony Holmes, who recalled Burge selecting him as a target because he was viewed as disposable.

In Chapter Three, Baer examines how systemic legal failures enabled torture. Miranda v. Arizona (1966) was intended to protect suspects, but in practice, it became a façade (pp. 54–57). As Baer and Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve argue, legal rituals masked deep injustice, and waiver forms gave detectives cover for coercion. Public defenders, prosecutors, and judges often accepted signed waivers at face value, dismissing torture claims even when victims spoke out.

The power of Baer’s analysis lies in his ability to show how ordinary paperwork and clearance rate pressures allowed extraordinary violence. Survivors like Lawrence Poree and Mark Clements suffered repeated torture, often racialized and targeted, under a system that normalized abuse rather than punished it.

Chapter Four discusses how the torture of Andrew Wilson in 1982 became a turning point in Burge’s career (pp. 128–33).  Rather than facing discipline, Burge was rewarded with a promotion and subsequent transfer to Area 3, where he used his new authority to expand and entrench his methods of torture. Baer notes that over 75 of the 118 known survivors were tortured after February 1982, showing how police violence escalated under Burge’s leadership. Victims like Michael Johnson and Melvin Jones endured brutal interrogations, even when evidence against them was thin or non-existent.

In Chapter Five, Baer brings in the media and political landscape. He shows how local journalists, community groups, and international organizations like Amnesty International helped expose the scandal. Although Andrew Wilson’s case never reached the national fame of Rodney King’s, activists successfully tied Chicago’s torture crisis to broader concerns about systemic police brutality in the U.S.

The final chapter details the persistence of the Chicago Torture Justice Movement to unravel the truth. Organizations like Citizens Alert and the People’s Law Office, alongside survivors like Aaron Patterson, fought for decades to expose the truth (pp. 184–200). Their efforts culminated in Burge’s firing in 1993, his federal conviction in 2010, and the landmark reparations ordinance of 2015. The ordinance was significant not just materially but symbolically, as the city acknowledged the torture and committed to education and reparation. Yet Baer reminds readers that true justice remains elusive, as many survivors are still incarcerated, and most of Burge’s colleagues who enabled the abuse were never held accountable.

Critically, Baer succeeds in his thesis: this was torture, not mere misconduct. His use of diverse sources like legal documents, internal CPD records, interviews, and media coverage provides a rich, authoritative account. The book’s structure is clear, guiding readers through the development, protection, and eventual exposure of the torture regime. Baer also situates his work within broader scholarly conversations, engaging thoughtfully with figures like Van Cleve, Balto, and Taylor, while focusing uniquely on the racialized interrogation room (pp. 5–15).

However, the book can also feel overwhelming in its density. At times, the combination of legal history, personal testimonies, and institutional analysis packs too much into a single section, making it harder for readers unfamiliar with Chicago’s political and policing structures to follow. Some survivor narratives could have been expanded to provide deeper psychological insight into the trauma experienced. Still, Baer’s careful balance of breadth and depth makes the book compelling and accessible.

What stands out most is Baer’s ethical clarity. He refuses neutral language, consistently labeling the abuses as “torture” and exposing the racial motivations underpinning them. He emphasizes how white officers routinely used slurs and racialized dehumanization to justify their actions. This insistence rejects the bad-apple narrative and instead highlights systemic rot.

Finally, Baer’s attention to resistance is especially powerful. Despite immense obstacles, a community of survivors, families, and activists pushed the scandal into public consciousness and demanded redress. As Baer notes, the achievements of the Chicago Torture Justice Movement show that even hidden violence can be challenged by collective action.

In the end, Beyond the Usual Beating is more than a history of police brutality. It is a model for documenting, naming, and fighting systemic abuse. Baer’s work demands not just reflection, but response, making it a landmark contribution to the literature on racial justice and police accountability.

Beyond the Usual Beating: The Jon Burge Police Torture Scandal and Social Movements for Police Accountability in Chicago; by Andrew S. Baer; University of Chicago Press; April 10, 2020, Hardcover, 312 pages, ISBN: 978-0226700472; Reviewed by ‪Happiness Okereke.