The organization will release a report on Wednesday. “With momentum for criminal justice reform accelerating, we want to leave no doubt where the law enforcement community stands: We need less incarceration, not more, to keep all Americans safe,” the group said.

The organization is counting on its members’ more than 1,000 years of law enforcement experience to help persuade the public, courts and members of Congress and state legislatures to roll back tough laws and rigid judicial practices that have built a criminal justice system with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and costing $80 billion a year to maintain.

Police departments and district attorneys have a great deal of discretion when it comes to making arrests and filing charges for minor crimes. But because the public and government officials demand zero tolerance for crimes like shoplifting and possession of small quantities of drugs, such offenses continue to be prosecuted and often come with jail sentences.

The policies have disproportionately affected African-American men. A 2013 study by the Sentencing Project found that police strategies that target black men and judges’ harsher sentences for minorities meant that one in three African-Americans born that year could expect to spend time in prison, compared with one in 17 white men.

“After all the years I’ve been doing this work, I ask myself, ‘What is a crime, and what does the community want?’ ” Superintendent McCarthy, a chairman of the group, said. “When we’re arresting people for low-level offenses — narcotics — I’m not sure we’re achieving what we’ve set out to do. The system of criminal justice is not supporting what the community wants. It’s very obvious what needs to be done, and we feel the obligation as police chiefs to do this.”

Chicago has seen a spike in shootings and homicides recently, but major crime has dropped by 39 percent since 2011, according to police statistics.

The organization says its proposals will not hinder the ability of law enforcement to arrest and prosecute people who have committed violent acts or other serious crimes.