Kate Holt, a Springfield woman, filed a complaint last week charging that the state’s capitol is violating state law by denying insurance coverage for physician-directed care for employees who are transgender. The charge recounts how Ms. Holt was denied coverage for medication prescribed by her physician - medication covered for other employees who are not transgender - after she was employed by the City of Springfield beginning in February 2020. The denial is a clear violation of Illinois’ Human Rights Act, according to the charge. 

“My prescriptions were excluded from insurance,” said Holt in announcing the charge. “They were excluded not because they were exotic or unreasonably expensive. My medications are common and covered for other medical conditions. I had already taken them under a physician’s care for more than two years without any problem. And the medications are covered for transgender people by other insurance plans, including our statewide Medicaid system.” 

“But these safe, widely available medications were denied to me under the City of Springfield’s plan because of who I am,” Holt added. 

At the time of her employment with the City in February 2020, Holt sought coverage for medication prescribed by her physician for treatment of her medical condition – gender dysphoria. Within a few weeks, Holt was disappointed to learn that the City’s Plan (administered by Trustmark Health Benefits) specifically denied coverage for “sex transformation and hormones related to such treatment.” Such an exclusion is aimed solely at people like her who are transgender and in need of treatment for gender dysphoria. 

Over the course of several months, she repeatedly contacted City employees responsible for management of the insurance plan, learning each time that her request for coverage had been denied. In June of 2020, Holt was told that the Joint Labor Management Health Care Committee had denied her request for coverage of hormone treatment, and that no change would be made. 

She also was told that there is no way to appeal this decision. The charge notes that the employee is being treated differently than other employees solely because she is transgender, a clear violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act.   

“The Capitol City needs to respect and follow the law of Illinois,” said Josh Blecher-Cohen, a legal fellow with the ACLU of Illinois. “Our client repeatedly raised this issue with those responsible for managing the employee insurance plan at the City of Springfield. She was repeatedly rebuffed. 

“The City responded with callous indifference and has taken no action – they need to do so.”  

Illinois still sends too many people to prison - and gives too many people felony records that follow them for life - for crimes that are often just the symptoms of poverty, addiction, and mental illness. Like a young woman in Chicago, who had her dreams of a career in medicine dashed after pleading guilty to simple drug possession. Or a teenager facing the prospect of prison after being caught stealing a winter coat from a Target store.

Even after a person finishes their sentence, having a felony record means that they will continue to face severe stigma, including numerous restrictions on access to employment, housing, education, and other crucial resources. These consequences are concentrated in segregated low-income neighborhoods, further deepening the existing patterns of inequality and disinvestment.

Over the past three decades, at least 1.5 million people have been convicted of felonies in Illinois. Many of these Illinoisans became entangled in the criminal legal system as a result of possessing small amounts of drugs or for property offenses like shoplifting—crimes often related to addiction and other mental health issues. From 2016 to 2018 alone, more than 5,000 people went to prison in Illinois for low-level thefts that would be categorized as misdemeanors in most other states. During this time, about 20,000 people were convicted of felonies for small-scale drug possession in Illinois, with more 7,500 going to prison.

But Illinois jails and prisons are not treatment centers. Police, prosecutors, and judges are fundamentally ill-equipped to manage complex health conditions. Even the most well-intentioned people working in criminal courts and correctional facilities usually lack the training, support, and resources to adequately respond to the specific needs of people with substance use disorders and other mental health issues.

Among people in Illinois jails and prisons, it is estimated that only 17 percent of those in need of clinical treatment services actually receive those services during their incarceration. While these numbers are abysmal, they are consistent with national averages.

Incarceration ultimately worsens the health outcomes of individuals who are at increased risk of death from overdose and suicide after their release. When people are already struggling with an addiction or health issues, the experience of going to jail only further destabilizes their lives, exacerbates the economic pressures they face, and stigmatizes them as criminals for life.

Incarceration also places stress on entire families and traumatizes children by taking their parents out of the home. Women represent a growing percentage of Illinois’ incarcerated population, usually because of retail theft or drug possession convictions. Incarcerated women are more likely to have been convicted of a low-level offense than their male counterparts and are also more likely than men to have been convicted of drug crimes: 30 percent vs. 18 percent. Of the approximately 2,500 women imprisoned in Illinois, about 80 percent are mothers and approximately 65 percent of their children are minors.

To reduce the number of people who become entangled in the legal system because of poverty and untreated health conditions, we must first start by ending the failed War on Drugs. To shift away from criminalization and embrace a public health and harm reduction approach to drug use and possession, Illinois must:

• Reduce the sentence classification for all drug crimes by at least one class and reclassify simple possession of any controlled substance from a felony to a misdemeanor.
• Eliminate mandatory minimums and sentencing enhancements based on prior criminal history for drug offenses.

Illinois must also modernize its outdated sentencing laws for property crimes. From 1975 through 2009, Illinois’ felony retail theft threshold remained unchanged at $150, even though the cost of goods quadrupled during that time. Since then, the cost of goods has continued to rise, but the threshold has increased just once and has not kept pace with inflation.

Today, retail theft is a felony in Illinois if the stolen goods have a value of just $300 or more, and even someone stealing a sandwich can face felony charges if they have a prior misdemeanor theft conviction on their record.

Those thresholds make Illinois an outlier, putting us out of step with every other state in the Midwest and most other states in the country. Only two states have a lower felony threshold. 29 states have thresholds of $1,000 or above, and several have thresholds of $2,000 or even $2,500.

While opponents have warned that raising the threshold might embolden thieves and cause theft to rise, evidence from other states shows that is not the case. A study of 37 states that raised their felony theft thresholds between 2000 and 2017 found that raising felony thresholds has no impact on the rates of theft or overall property crime, and the amount of a state’s felony theft threshold—whether it is $500, $1,000, $2,000, or more—is not correlated with its property crime and larceny rates.

Illinois should follow the lead of these 37 states and pass legislation to:

• Increase the felony threshold for retail theft from $300 to $2,000; and
• Repeal the penalty enhancement that requires a misdemeanor charge to be upgraded to a felony if the person has any prior theft conviction.

With these actions, the State of Illinois can work towards keeping more people out of its overcrowded prison and jail systems – especially in an ongoing pandemic – and give people a better chance at getting the treatment and help they need, instead of exacerbating the problem by throwing them behind bars.

Tools like Amazon Ring’s doorbell system are often touted as a solution to safety concerns. But the reality hiding behind this seemingly simple tool reveals a much darker, deeper, and growing network that uses our privacy as currency.

The COVID crisis, with new requirements for social distancing and working from home, has made us even more reliant on technology. From Zoom calls, to being able to see who is at our door without ever getting up, this technology is more convenient than ever. However, this convenience and comfort comes at a steep cost: billion-dollar companies like Amazon swapping our most intimate personal data.

The companies creating this type of smart technology emphasize the need to gather our data to help make the devices even smarter, promising us a better and more personalized experience. The reality is much darker. With a collection of household electronic devices inside your home and out, companies are building a network of third parties with whom they can share the data those devices collect.

This means that every time we bring home new technology, we give up our privacy and put our personal data into the hands of others. Those hands could belong to other companies or even government agencies. Such public-private partnerships are often created in the name of security, but in reality, harm our privacy and civil rights. 

Just take a look at Amazon’s Ring doorbell system, which as of October 2020, brings with it a network of more than 1,550 law enforcement agencies across the country. All of those agencies are now able to access video footage collected by Ring’s doorbell system—footage that captures activities at the home’s doorstep, the street, and often even the homes across the street. By partnering with Amazon, our government has essentially built an entirely new surveillance system that’s always watching – but never asking for permission.

Throughout this summer, we heard a number of public voices advocate for the widespread adoption of smart doorbell security cameras like Amazon Ring to help address crime. Most recently, Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez introduced a proposal at a city council meeting calling for the Chicago Police Department to join forces with companies like Amazon Ring, ADT, Vivint and “otherdoorbell security camera operators whose systems are compatible with cameras already linked to the city’s 911 emergency center.”  And as of October 2020, CPD acted on this by introducing the RING Neighbors for Law Enforcement Portal Pilot Program.

While some think that adding thousands of new cameras for local law enforcement is a good thing, the reality raises concerns about privacy implications, racial profiling, and less than transparent public-private partnerships – all while expanding the “Big Brother” surveillance overreach we have already seen in major cities like Chicago.  In fact, the most recent partnership by CPD does not even require ownership of a Ring product for access.  Instead, it relies on a “commercially available, free-to-use, software application,” which allows subscribers to get “real-time crime and safety alerts from participating neighbors and local law enforcement.”

This Orwellian reality is even scarier when we consider the recent announcement out of Jackson, Mississippi, committing to the launch of a 45-day pilot program live streaming Ring camera footage to the police. The program would allow owners of Ring devices to patch the camera streams from their front doors directly to the city’s Real Time Crime Center.  This means that anyone walking their dog, taking out the trash, delivering packages, or simply walking past a Ring-equipped front door is now victim to police scrutiny; regardless of whether they consent to having their footage used in this way or not.

We have seen from the past that an increase in camera surveillance of neighborhoods does not mean that more crimes are being solved. In fact, a study examining the impact of Ring technology in Aurora found that property crime had actually fallen by a slightly greater percentage the year before the Aurora Police Department’s partnership with Amazon.

Moreover, reliance on this type of technology can increase worry and fear among residents, which results in a larger number of false alarms and handing over hours of video footage of neighbors - who never consented to be filmed in the first place - into the hands of law enforcement. This also highlights the greater racial disparities among people reported for potentially criminal behavior because of doorbell cameras.

The inefficiency of this technology, coupled with a distrust of law enforcement within communities of color, exacerbates the harm of deceptive advertising adopted by companies like Amazon. When we see advertisements for Amazon’s Ring, it is very apparent that these government-sponsored surveillance systems are not advertised. We are not shown the data-sharing schemes these companies have entered into, nor are we shown how much data this technology is actually able to collect.

Amazon is only one example of the many corporations building and marketing technology that profit by sharing our data. This leaves consumers with the responsibility to do our own due diligence by researching every product we are considering - or even offered for free.

Do we take advantage of this this new technology because it’s convenient? Is the potential feeling of comfort offered by the device worth the privacy we are giving up? Those should not be our only options. We should not have to choose between protecting our privacy and helpful technology that can add value to our lives.

Luckily, the solution is right in front of us: law enforcement and companies like Amazon should not partner up and use our privacy as currency. Until that happens, residents will continue to live in fear that thousands of government eyes will watch their every move, even as they enter their own home, visit a friend, or walk their dog on the street. That type of government overreach is the last thing Illinois needs right now.