By Joe Ragusa

NORMAL – Excessive police force is a tough issue to deal with, but an Illinois State University professor and the local ACLU chapter are trying to help people understand the problem.

ISU criminal justice professor Jason Ingram says there’s no universal reporting system for instances of police force, be it excessive or deadly.

“You don’t really have a good understanding of how much force actually occurs nationally or even really at the local level,” Ingram said. “Any numbers that you hear in the media, especially in terms of the amount of deadly force, is likely going to be skewed a bit.”

Former Bloomington-Normal NAACP president Linda Foster, one of the people attending Wednesday’s forum, said there were a lot of takeaways from the program.

“My biggest takeaway is that there’s no consistency in these departments, in these cities across the nation,” Foster said.

Illinois is one of a few states to pass a comprehensive plan for police practices. The new law takes full effect in January.

Joe Ragusa can be reached at [email protected].