Chicago will pay up to $5.5m in compensation to dozens of people who were tortured by the city's police force during the 1970s and 1980s.

On Wednesday, the city council approved legislation that will also provide trauma counselling and help with job training to the victims.

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

The people of Chicago made HISTORY today. #ReparationsWon for Burge Torture Survivors!! #rahmrepnow pic.twitter.com/WygNDqRbm1

— Monica Trinidad (@monicatea2) May 6, 2015

Chicago and Cook County already have paid around $100m in settlements related to former Chicago police Commander Jon Burge, who was fired in 1993 and later convicted of lying about police torture. He was released from jail in October 2014.