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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 4/13/21

Th e 2021 Illinois Criminal Justice Reform Bill: First in the Nation to Abolish Cash Bail

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Message Belden Fields

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On February 22, Governor Pritzker signed House Bill 3653. This bill, rather a composite omnibus of many bills, was sponsored by the Black Caucuses in both the Illinois House and Senate. Several of the individual bills were sponsored by our own Representative Carol Ammons. The provisions do not take effect immediately. Over the next couple years, implementation commissions or task forces will study how the different provisions can be implemented. It is a very long bill, so I just want to over what I think are some of the highlights.

Proscriptions on Police Behavior

Let's begin with proscriptions on certain police practices that have resulted in harm or death to civilians. The police will no longer be able to use choke holds or restraints above the shoulder that could cause asphyxiation, as in the cases of Eric Garner in Staten Island and George Floyd in Minneapolis. Both men warned officers that they could not breath to no avail. They were killed by the police over petty issues, illegally selling cigarettes on the sidewalk (Garner)and passing a counterfeit $20 bill (Floyd).

The police will no longer be permitted to use deadly force in cases of property crimes, or to prevent an escape unless such escape would pose a threat to the lives of other people.

The police will no longer be permitted to shoot projectiles into a crowd, or use chemical agents, unless they have given and order to disperse and allowed time for people to comply with the order.

There are also requirements that are imposed on police officers. If officers shoot or wound people, they will be required to render medical assistance, in contrast to how Michael Brown was permitted to lie dying unattended for hours after being shot by the police in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, again over a minor issue.

Officers will be required to intervene to prevent unauthorized use of force by other officers and forbidden from retaliating against other officers who intervene or report unauthorized force.

Officers will face class 3 felony charges if they: misrepresent facts on any report; withhold knowledge of another officer doing so (to end the blue wall of silence); or fail to comply with this law's mandate that they wear and turn on body cameras. (The law actually reads "with state law or departmental policy'" presumably in case a department's camera policy is even more stringent than the state's law").

In order to prevent retaliation by the police, people will be able to submit complaints against police behavior anonymously, just as they can submit tips on crime by nonpolice officers anonymously.

A More Humane Approach to Stops and Detention

There is also a lessening of the harsh consequences when a person is stopped and arrested.

First, Illinois will be first state in the nation to abolish cash bail. This will not apply to persons deemed to be a threat to the community or a flight risk, or charged with certain kinds of serious crimes like murder or sex offenses. This is a crucial change because people who are accused, but not convicted, can lose their abilities to provide for themselves and their families while sitting in jail. Additionally, the bill provides for less frequent, and less restrictive, use of electronic home monitoring.

Also, for traffic and B and C misdemeanors, and for other petty and business offenses, citations rather than custodial arrests will be used. This will also be the case for people with mental health problems who commit lower level offenses, unless they pose a threat to others. Again, these should reduce the number of people who have not been convicted, but who nonetheless can sit in jails, sometimes for very long periods and suffer the external consequences.

Once someone is arrested, that person will have the rights to contact free of charge an attorney of one's choice and family members as soon as possible, but at least within 3 hours. One will also be able to retrieve numbers from one's cell phones, and make three phone calls. Each holding building, police station or jail, will be required to post signs informing prisoners of these rights. The right to make calls will be renewed after each move to a new holding location.

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Belden Fields is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Illinois in Urbana and an editor/facilitator/writer for the Public i, the newspaper of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Center. His scholarly work has focused on French (more...)
 
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