Handschu agreement

The Handschu agreement is a set of guidelines that regulate police behavior in New York City with regard to political activity.

In 1971, 21 members of the Black Panther Party were tried for conspiracy to blow up police stations and department stores. They were acquitted of all charges after only 90 minutes of jury deliberation. The trial revealed the extent to which the NYPD had infiltrated and kept dossiers on not only the Black Panthers and other radical groups, but also on anti-war groups, gay rights activists, educational reform advocates, religious groups, and civic organizations.

The Handschu agreement, or decree, was the result of a class-action lawsuit filed against the City of New York, its Police Commissioner and the Intelligence Division of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) on behalf of Barbara Handschu and fifteen other plaintiffs affiliated with various political or ideological associations and organizations, known as Handschu v. Special Services Division, 605 F.Supp. 1384, affirmed 787 F.2d 828. The plaintiffs claimed that “informers and infiltrators provoked, solicited and induced members of lawful political and social groups to engage in unlawful activities”; that files were maintained with respect to “persons, places, and activities entirely unrelated to legitimate law enforcement purposes, such as those attending meetings of lawful organizations”; and that information from these files was made available to academic institutions, prospective employers, licensing agencies and others. In addition, plaintiffs protested seven types of police misconduct: (1) the use of informers; (2) infiltration; (3) interrogation; (4) overt surveillance; (5) summary punishment; (6) intelligence gathering; and (7) electronic surveillance, and alleged that these police practices which punished and repressed lawful dissent had had a “chilling effect” upon the exercise of freedom of speech, assembly and association, that they violated constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that they abridged rights of privacy and due process.

In 1985, the court found that police surveillance of political activity violated constitutional protections of free speech. This ruling resulted in a consent decree which prohibited the NYPD from engaging “in any investigation of political activity except through the … Intelligence Division [of the Police Department]" and required that any “such investigations shall be conducted” only in accordance with the Guidelines incorporated into the Decree. The Guidelines further prohibited the Intelligence Division from “commencing an investigation” into the political, ideological or religious activities of an individual or group unless “specific information has been received by the Police Department that a person or group engaged in political activity is engaged in, about to engage in or has threatened to engage in conduct which constitutes a crime….”

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