What is Contact Tracing?

Contact Tracing works backwards from someone testing positive for COVID-19 to identify anyone they may have come in contact with, possibly exposing them to the disease.

Why is it important?

Contact Tracing is a public health tool that can help slow down the spread of COVID-19 by warning people if they’ve been exposed, even if they aren’t showing any symptoms.

Even though the tool offers public health benefits, it may also cause significant risks to civil rights and liberties.

How does it work?

There are a couple of different ways for contact tracing to work. One is known as the manual approach and the others are called tech assisted contact tracing models (TACT). 

Manual Contact Tracing

Tech-Assisted Contact Tracing

TACT models go through the same steps as a manual approach - except this time with a smart phone instead of human callers. There are two categories of TACT models based on the type of data collected:

Will I need to download an app?

Right now, the state is rolling out a voluntary manual contact tracing process. But that doesn’t mean a tech approach won’t be adopted in the future. 

Your work and school may also have different requirements. If you are asked to download an app, ask questions to help figure out how it may impact your privacy rights.

What happens to my information?

Since contact tracing is a public health tool, any information collected during the process should only be used for public health purposes. It should never make its way into the hands of another government agency.

What does contact tracing have to do with your rights?

The process of contact tracing relies on collecting your personal information in order to determine where you've been and who you may have exposed. Since contact tracers need to know if you've tested positive or are showing symptoms, your medical information is also being shared.

You have privacy rights attached to all of this data, making it sensitive and valuable. Any entity, including the government, must respect those rights.

How can my privacy be protected during contact tracing?

All contact tracing models should be developed and implemented with a privacy-first approach. This means that protecting your privacy needs to be a top priority when an entity is considering the use of contact tracing. The information collected should be:

• minimal
• never shared with anyone else
• only used for the limited purpose of slowing down the spread of COVID-19

What if I have more questions?

For public health questions visit: www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19/contact-tracing

For ways to protect your privacy: https://www.aclu-il.org/en/campaigns/protecting-privacy-during-covid-19

Interested in a training? Email acluofillinois@aclu-il.org

Right now, mandatory minimum sentencing laws are extremely punitive to people in Illinois and routinely deny judges in our state the flexibility to craft individualized sentences. Even a man convicted of a nonviolent crime like selling drugs can be required to spend the rest of his life in prison, not because the judge determined that was a fair sentence, but because of a law passed by legislators who knew nothing about the circumstances of the case or his potential for rehabilitation.

While the Illinois Constitution provides that “all penalties shall be determined both according to the seriousness of the offense and with the objective of restoring the offender to useful citizenship,” mandatory minimum sentences and penalty enhancements leave judges no recourse but to sentence an individual to a long prison term, even if they believe that probation or a shorter term of incarceration would be a more just outcome.

In Illinois, all prison-eligible crimes are categorized within one of six felony classes, each of which carries a minimum and maximum prison sentence. For instance, a Class 4 felony is the lowest-level class with a one-year minimum prison sentence and three-year maximum; both the minimums and maximums grow progressively longer for Class 3, 2, and 1 felonies, respectively. It is important to note that first-degree murder is in its own class, with a minimum sentence of at least 20 years and a maximum of 60 years, or up to natural life if certain aggravating factors apply.

For a broad array of crimes, Illinois law provides mandatory minimum sentences, meaning the law specifically mandates imprisonment and prohibits consideration of any alternative to incarceration. Some examples of crimes carrying mandatory minimums in Illinois are residential burglary (which typically involves the unlawful entry into an unoccupied residence) and delivery of 3 grams or more of heroin.

These mandatory minimum sentencing laws rob judges of discretion in two ways: by forcing them to sentence people to prison rather than probation, and by forcing them to sentence people for unnecessarily long terms of incarceration. Evidence shows that the average sentences imposed by judges tend to be closer to the minimum sentence than the maximum, and judges have said they often feel constrained by those minimums.

At a recent hearing in the Illinois Senate Criminal Law Committee, retired Judge Donald Bernardi testified that “in discussions I’ve had with judges … we have often discussed the inability to go below a minimum. Judges would comment ‘I wish I could have given him probation.’ I mean that’s something I actually have heard quite a bit. I have never heard a judge complain ‘I wish I could have given the guy more time.’”

Illinois law also includes harmful mandatory penalty enhancements that require judges to tack on additional years—and sometimes decades—to a person’s sentence under certain circumstances. The severity and rigidity of these draconian sentencing enhancements make Illinois an extreme outlier compared to other states.

For instance, in 1999 the General Assembly passed a law requiring judges to add 15, 20, or even 25 years to a person’s sentence if they possessed or discharged a firearm during the crime. Illinois’ firearm enhancements are the most extreme of any state in terms of length, and are rigidly mandatory in comparison to other states’ laws. While in 2015 the legislature amended the law to allow judges the option not to apply the firearm enhancements to juvenile defendants, no such option exists for an adult defendant.

Illinois also still has destructive and ineffective “three strikes” laws on the books that impose lengthy mandatory prison sentences - and in some cases natural life imprisonment without the possibility of parole- if a person has certain prior convictions. Short of the death penalty, life imprisonment is the harshest imaginable punishment. If Illinois is to continue condemning people to die in prison, then lawmakers must ensure that this drastic sanction is never imposed mechanically, and only for the most serious violent crimes. A drug offense should never carry a life sentence, no matter what past convictions a person may have.

These laws also come with large racial disparities embedded into their enforcement - according to an analysis by the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council, 70% of the people admitted to prison who were eligible for “three strikes” sentencing were Black. For all but 27% of these individuals, at least one of their three convictions were for a non-forcible felony.

To empower judges to construct just sentences for individuals based on all the evidence before the court, Illinois must enact the following reforms to its sentencing laws:

• Allow judges more flexibility to determine the length of prison sentences by reducing the minimum sentence for most classes of offenses.
• Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for residential burglary and certain drug law violations and give judges the discretion to determine whether a sentence of probation may be appropriate for these crimes.
• Roll back mandatory sentencing enhancements that require judges to add 15 - 25 years to a person’s sentence if they possessed or discharged a firearm during the crime.
• Limit “three strikes” sentencing to cases where all three convictions are for serious violent offenses

Every crime is different, and every individual charged with an offense is different. Judges, not the legislature, should be responsible for determining individual sentences for people found guilty of crimes. It is time for Illinois legislators to do away with harmful minimum sentencing laws and give judges the flexibility they need to better serve their communities.

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.”