The below statement can be attributed to Nusrat Choudhury, legal director at the ACLU of Illinois:
 
“The Monitor’s report issued last night begs a simple question: What change in policing are Chicago residents actually seeing in their neighborhoods? This question urgently needs a positive answer more than two years after the entry of a federal court consent decree governing Chicago police to remedy patterns of excessive force against people of color and people with disabilities.
 
But Black and Brown neighborhoods are seeing little, if any, change.
 
The City has made insufficient progress in changing policing on the ground. Today’s report catalogues once again that the City and Chicago Police Department missed most deadlines—measures required under the consent decree to fix broken policing in a City with a painful history of police violence. Most strikingly, the monitor’s report shows a continued absence of real community engagement – the lynchpin of ensuring that changes to policing address communities’ needs and painstakingly rebuild the trust between police and neighborhoods that has been destroyed.
 
The Monitor finds that the City and CPD lack consistent procedures for engaging community members and, that when they do reach out, they prevent “meaningful participation” by seeking public comment late in the process when policies are close to being finalized. This is not community engagement. The City and CPD must actually want to meet early with community members and organizations from the neighborhoods most impacted by police violence, be open to their recommendations, and collaborate on solutions. This approach has been woefully absent from the City’s response to community concerns about wrong home raids that hurt Black and Brown communities, where the City has not met with the coalition of community organizations enforcing the Chicago Police consent decree, which raised this issue months ago.
 
The Monitor recognizes that many of those who protested in the streets of Chicago last summer following the horrific killing of George Floyd are calling for police accountability and other changes that directly relate to around twenty separate provisions of the Chicago policing consent decree. Yet, Chicago police met many protesters with baton strikes to the head, pepper spray, retaliation for recording police violence, and efforts to evade accountability by covering their name badges and star numbers.
 
In the face of this real time police violence in the midst of calls for racial justice, missing fewer deadlines and providing documents to the Monitor is not enough. We call on the City to reflect in its conduct that the consent decree is an opportunity for working with community partners in the hard work of transformational change to advance fairness and safety for all communities. 
 
It has been four years since the U.S. Department of Justice report laid bare the problems causing the Chicago Police Department’s pattern of unconstitutional police violence against people of color. The need for action cannot wait another day.”

The following statement can be attributed to Khadine Bennett, Director of Advocacy and Intergovernmental Affairs, ACLU of Illinois: 

“Today’s vote in Committee is significant. In response to repeated examples of egregious police misconduct – often captured on videotape for the world to see – Illinois residents are told that these horrific experiences reflect “just a few bad apples” in law enforcement. But the public is often frustrated by the reality that these supposed “bad apples” rarely are held accountable. For too long, special protections like qualified immunity create an almost insurmountable barrier to justice for people whose constitutional rights have been violated by police. HB 1727 changes that and provides the people of this state a chance to hold bad police officers accountable when they violate someone’s constitutional rights. 

In polling conducted late in 2020, nearly 70% of Illinois voters supported this initiative. We thank Representative Tarver for his leadership in moving this bill forward and look forward to a vote on the floor of the House. Now is the time for the General Assembly to take action. We can’t afford to wait.”

A bill that would install a public health approach to drug use in Illinois today cleared a key House Committee in Springfield. Rejecting the failed policies of the “War on Drugs,” House Bill 3447 reduces penalties for small-scale drug possession from a felony to a misdemeanor. Testimony before the Committee demonstrated the compelling need for shifting the State’s approach to drug use. The vote in favor of the bill was 12 to 7. 

“Over just three years 20,000 people were convicted of felonies in Illinois for possessing small amounts of drugs and 7,500 were imprisoned,” the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Carol Ammons (Urbana) told the committee.

Representative Ammons was joined at the hearing by a diverse panel of witnesses who argued that the measure would address fundamental problems in our criminal legal system and make communities safer by connecting people who need treatment for substance use disorders with community-based services instead of jail. Experts agree that a public health approach is proven to work better to address the harms associated with drug use.

Lake County Sheriff John Idleburg championed the bill, telling committee members, “People dealing with addiction need their safety net of support reinforced, not taken from them through incarceration.  Unfortunately, this is exactly what stiff criminal penalties associated with lower-level drug possession offenses do. Our communities deserve investment in recovery services and not steep involvement in the criminal justice system when an addiction crisis affects our community members.”

Committee members also were told that Illinois voters agree with a change of approach in our state. In a poll conducted for the ACLU of Illinois last year, voters made clear that they support changes to punishments handed down for those arrested for possessing illegal drugs. A commanding 79% of voters support making possession of small amounts of drugs a misdemeanor and decreasing sentences for all drug offenses. 84% of voters agree that the state should provide mental health and substance use disorder treatment on demand in Illinois.

The bill now moves to consideration by the full House of Representatives. Advocates for the bill said today that they hope to secure passage in both chambers of the legislature by the May 31st session end. 

“New policies around drug sentencing allow us to break the cycle in which punishment and incarceration, rather than treatment and support, are the default responses to substance use disorders,” said Ben Ruddell of the ACLU of Illinois. “This bill builds pathways to community-based treatment for those who need it, and includes expungement and resentencing provisions that will help people with past convictions move on with their lives.”

The polling information released today is drawn from a poll of 600 voters in Illinois conducted by Global Strategy Group from October 27 - November 4. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 4.0% and was conducted online using a voter file match. Care was taken to ensure the poll represented the registered voter universe.