Chicago will pay a total of up to $5.5 million to dozens of people tortured by the city's police in the 1970s and 1980s and make other reparations such as a memorial to torture victims under an ordinance approved by the city council on Wednesday.

Police reparations of this magnitude are a first for America, according to the Guardian.

"We are strong enough to say we were wrong," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said after the vote. "Chicago will finally confront its past and come to terms with it."

The ordinance also calls for the city to provide psychological counseling, job placement aid and other services to torture victims.

During this era of brutality, disgraced Chicago police Commander Jon Burge ran a group of rogue detectives known as the "Midnight Crew." From 1972 to 1991, under his leadership, the Guardian reports, they allegedly tortured 120 people, mostly African American residents of Chicago's impoverished South Side. Those in custody were allegedly subjected to electric shocks, beatings, and even faux-Russian roulette, according to the Chicago Tribune.