By: Matt Rosenberg
Wednesday November 30, just one day before the end of the Illinois state legislature’s fall veto session, lawmakers finally offered and approved amendments to the controversial criminal justice “reform” bill called the SAFE-T Act. Once Governor J.B. Pritzker signs off the changes will be law. After harshly vilifying SAFE-T critics who called out the Act’s problems, now in the 11th hour lawmakers are in effect admitting major missteps. But they still aren’t correcting several grave shortcomings of the Act. Problems remain with the abolishment of cash bail, mandated anonymous complaints against police, and more.
It’s also a violation of the spirit of transparency and public inclusion to introduce on the day before adjournment a 308-page last-minute amendment to the 764-page bill with life and death – and for police, career – implications. Yet this is how the Illinois legislative sausage factory runs under one-party Democratic rule.
3 Key Improvements Eyed
Let’s review some of the pluses and minuses of the approved amendments. Here are some of the key fixes approved by legislators.
- A 48-hour free roaming pass for criminal defendants on electronic monitoring (EM) would be revoked. Currently under the enacted SAFE-T bill if pretrial defendants on EM violate terms of home confinement, police can’t pursue them for two days. That puts crime victims and witnesses at risk of intimidation or harm. Now that provision would be removed. (The language is on p. 306 of the amendment legislation).
- Lawmakers also would expand the list of offenses for which criminal defendants can be detained in jail without bail before trial. Under the amendment pretrial detention would be allowed for forcible felonies including armed or aggravated robbery, burglary with force, residential burglary, home invasion, vehicle invasion, aggravated arson, and aggravated battery. Critics including Wirepoints called out that there were many serious criminal offenses made effectively non-detainable under the original SAFE-T Act language. Now as proposed corrections mount, critics are being proven right.
- Further conditions for pretrial detention would also be made less onerous to prosecutors. Proof of a threat to a specific individual was to be required to hold defendants before trial in some instances. Under the proposed amendments that would now change to a more reasonable and fitting requirement favored by prosecutors: proof of threat to the community at large. As Wirepoints reported earlier this autumn, “removal of the ‘threat to the community’ standard from the new law renders many crimes virtually non-detainable. Under current law, judges can broadly determine the dangerousness of defendants by assessing their threat to “the community, person, persons or class of persons. Unfortunately, the SAFE-T Act strikes out that language.” Now the standard would be reinstated. One result is that felony weapons defendants could be detained before trial if prosecutors can show a threat to the community – rather than having to specify a threatened individual.
Additional changes are scattered throughout the 308-page amendment document including a process for defendants held on cash bail before January 1, 2023 to petition for release after cash bail is abolished under the SAFE-T Act on that date. Other changes include broadening police authority to arrest for trespassing, and granting courts the authority to extend the 90-day limit on pretrial detention for “continuances with good cause.”
At least 5 big problems remain
But based on our review of the full 308-page amendment document, there are at least five big problems with the act which remain.
- They’re still failing to right a fundamental wrong in the SAFE-T Act regarding cash bail. It’s wrong to abolish it. The state constitution requires it. Cash bail is a good middle ground, and contrary to popular claims most low-income defendants do not languish in jail for months. In New York City before bail reform in 2018, 70 percent of defendants required to pay cash bail for release did so within a week and 88 percent within 8 to 30 days.
- While the proposed amendments could foreclose the 48-hour free-roaming by electronic monitoring scofflaws, left uncorrected is SAFE-T’s granting of two 8-hour furloughs for so-called “essential movement.” The provision has been abused and other EM defendants continue to rack up new and disturbing charges while being “monitored.”
- The amendments also leave untouched two toxic-to-police provisions. There is no rescinding of the language mandating that police decertification complaints to the state will now be made anonymously.
- There is also no rescinding of SAFE-T language stripping the requirement of a sworn affidavit for local police misconduct complaints.
- And since under SAFE-T they’re adding a new statewide database to track police decertification cases, SAFE-T should clearly mandate online transparency on sentencing outcomes for criminal felony cases. Courtroom by courtroom, judge by judge. And list the prosecutors involved too. How can we vote for judges without knowing what they’re doing? It’s clear enough already their lenience too often leads to more violent crime and even death.
Lawmakers are still in over their heads
Although legislative action is expected to wind down by late tonight with the close of the fall veto session, next week a Kankakee County judge will hear arguments for and against a consolidated lawsuit by 58 county state’s attorneys to rescind the SAFE-T Act. A decision from the bench could come as soon as mid-month, after which appeals to the Illinois Supreme Court are likely. The lawsuit leans hard on the state constitution and its requirement to retain cash bail, which is currently abolished under SAFE-T as of January 1.
We recently reported the Illinois Constitution requires that:
“‘All persons shall be bailable by sufficient sureties. ”Article 1 (Section 8.1) in the…Constitution also…states victims must be ‘reasonably protected from the accused throughout the criminal justice process’ and must have their safety ‘considered in denying or fixing the amount of bail, determining whether to release the defendant, and setting conditions of release after arrest and conviction.’”
Lawmakers are still in over their heads. They’ve left too many problematic aspects of the SAFE-T Act uncorrected.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- 100 a day: Chicago motor vehicle thefts explode as SAFE-T Act changes debated
- Electronic monitoring horror show grows as lawmakers skate past SAFE-T reforms
- Poor communities bear the brunt of crime unleashed by Cook County bail reform and the SAFE-T Act: New Manhattan Institute report
- Chicago’s progressive agenda has been destructive for black communities
- Chicago Transit Authority violent crime aims for five-year high in 2022; Red Line stuck in “Wild West”
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
1000 pages of democrat gibberish. 1000 pages of love the criminal, screw the victims. 1000 pages of get out of jail free. 1000 pages of “restorative justice” dreamed up by the black caucus to keep their constituents on the streets, in the black community so they can rob, beat and kill more of the residents. 1000 pages of insanity.
Matt, thank you so much for the breakdown of these changes. It’s great that you are both clear and trustworthy.
Both of which can be removed via collective bargaining via the Workers Rights Amendment.
We might end up with a patchwork SAFE-T Act in which some provisions have been rescinded contractually in municipalities or counties across the state. Local governments are under no obligation to follow a law that conflicts with contractual provisions protected by the state constitution.
If you’re a victim of crime in Illinois,, don’t bother calling law enforcement and don’t defend yourself. You’ll be called a racist and you will be considered the perpetrator and be the one prosecuted. What Dems are saying is. Hands off our new sacred class. Don’t hurt our criminals.
If the Constitution of Illinois requires cash bail how can the General Assembly vote to abolish it? Isn’t that something we should be voting on? Don’t citizens have to be involved in changes to the Constitution just like we voted for or against Amendment 1? Why does the General Assembly believe they can ignore the Illinois Constitution? Where are the lawyers that should be fighting this?
The constitution is not an impediment to the the communist. You should know that by now. They just do whatever they want. Nothing restrains the tyrants. That’s why we have a system of checks and balances. Hopefully it works in this case because all three branches of government have been captured by regime ideologues.
Our US Constitution is being similarly violated, frequently. Federal and executive overreach – the slow creep of national intervention – is rampant. Examples include infringement on state sovereignty, eminent domain tactics, removing border security measures, mandating Medicaid coverage, abortion! It’s been happening for decades. Limited government? Far from it. Drive around DC and imagine the constituencies that lobby, consult, transact, heck, live, around the swamp, agreeing to budget cuts and smaller government. Not in our lifetimes.
Voters are only needed once every two years. Here, gaze at this shiny object while we diminish your freedoms.
Well then why did the whole State of Illinois have to vote to add Amendment one to the Illinois Constitution if it doesn’t make any difference? Why didn’t the state just mandate the change and add it to the Constitution? I’m confused.
The public unions and their politician cronies desired to permanently and perpetually enshrine an expansive set of new “rights” that couldn’t be dismissed with the stroke of a pen via executive order or a law passed by a more conservative General Assembly. To achieve this goal, an amendment was necessary which, of course, must be enacted by vote. Congress has implied power via the “Elastic Clause” in the Constitution. They can pass any laws considered “necessary and proper” for effectively exercising its “enumerated” powers. Laws they pass can be controversial, perhaps even unconstitutional. Unless challenged, the slow creep of government… Read more »
The people who enacted this initial law are the same people making the last minute changes. They do not want to make these changes. The initial act was a knee jerk response and a pander attempt at best. No cash bail is nothing short of a social experiment where society is then put in the place of being the test subjects.
What will take place will be more frequency of the current wild west show we see everyday. Crying shame that Cunningham and Hurley who represent so many many CPD families and city workers in Beverly and Mount Greenwood are so quiet. They should be screaming from the highest hill!!!!
Forces regular citizens to arm themselves and defend from these violent thugs. Cannot believe it has come to this. Gangbangers and cartels have to be giving envelopes to these people….. something is just not right about any of this.
I foresee COPA getting overwhelmed with “anonymous” complaints to crash the system…
This will also kneecap supervision, as a boss trying to hold others accountable can potentially find themselves under investigation for numerous “anonymous” complaints…
If I’m the CPD Superintendent, or a Chief of police, I’d be nervous…
I can see this whole thing crashing & burning spectacularly…
Unfortunately at tax payer expense…
Wow. The levels of hubris, condescension, incompetence and corruption exhibited by Illinois politicians, continues to be shocking. Non public union taxpayers in Illinois continue to be abused, with little hope of rescue.
Things are bad now. Just this morning gunmen, 2 or 3 armed men with rifles opened fire on a man as he was exiting court, which is next to the 5th police district which is in the Area 2 detective headquarters building. Uniformed officers present and the gunmen opened up firing at least 30 rounds some of which struck the police building and the court house. The criminals have no fear of repercussions with a pro criminal states attorney, a pro criminal chief judge and pro criminal democrats who implemented the SAFE T act. Can one only imagine what it… Read more »
Would still wonder if the legislators who will vote on these “improvements” have read and understand them. Asked the same question regarding the initial bill. Never found anyone who said they had actually read it through. Now they’ll be told how to vote on this (do they understand the “changes”?)….would love to know what arm-twisting and horse-trading has brought us to this point. Given the horrific “birth” of the original legislation and the governor’s obvious glee in signing it, “someone” got “something” to make 300+ pages of changes, whether they are substantive or the usual window dressing to placate the… Read more »
Some of the changes to the SAFE-T Act could have been inspired by good reporting here at WIREPOINTS, making sense of IL government obfuscation. Hopefully more more SAFE-T Act changes will follow.