Republican candidate for Illinois Senate District 56 and Madison County Board member Erica Harriss provided some insight on the hidden costs the new SAFE-T Act could impose on Illinois residents through unfunded mandates.
The Illinois Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act, which is part of the broader HB3653, was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker on Feb. 22, 2021. Before that, the 764-page bill was passed by the Illinois legislature in the early hours of Jan. 13 during a lame-duck session in under an hour.
The law will go into effect Jan. 1, 2023, and is a “sweeping overhaul of Illinois’ criminal justice and pre-trial detention system,” Harriss said.
“Though they have passed some subsequent legislation amending the bill,” she said, “the reality is that it still makes it harder to apprehend criminals, solve crimes, hold the guilty accountable and give justice to victims and their families.”
Harriss said the bill “handcuffs our police and empowers our criminals” by physically and financially limiting law enforcement.
“More specifically for downstate communities like ours, it overhauls Illinois' local criminal justice system with unfunded mandates that could force local municipalities to either increase property taxes or defund the police or both,” Harriss said.
The unfunded mandates imposed on law enforcement by the SAFE-T Act includes mandatory body cameras and costs of corresponding technology.
“All law enforcement agencies must employ the use of officer-worn body cameras in accordance with the provisions of this Act, whether or not the agency receives or has received monies from the Law Enforcement Camera Grant Fund,” the Act states.
While the law indicates that a grant will be available, it is unclear how much of the cost will still fall on communities to fund.
Additionally, if the State’s Attorney’s Office seeks to have pretrial release denied for criminal defendants, then a hearing must be held immediately unless a continuance is requested. If a continuance is requested, the hearing must be held within 24 or 48 hours, depending on the charges.
“If we are going to abide by that, then we have to plan to have our courts available on the weekends,” Harriss said.
She explained that if a hearing must take place on a weekend, employees would have to be present from the circuit clerk’s office, security, court reporters, judges, probation officers and attorneys from the State’s Attorney’s Office and Public Defender’s Office. It is unknown at this time whether those employees would be paid overtime pay in those instances or how much weekend hearings could cost the county.
She added that the State’s Attorney’s Office would have to coordinate with the Sheriff’s Department about immediate release offenses versus discretionary offenses. They would then have to file petitions for detention, which will be time consuming and costly, she said.
“We don’t have full dollar amounts yet,” she said, “but we are working on those.”
Harriss said the Madison County administration has recommended that each agency affected by the SAFE-T Act come up with an estimated cost impact implementing the changes required under the law. She said the county will have a better idea on costs after budgets are finalized and sent to the County Board for approval in October or November.
Harriss said the unfunded mandates imposed by the SAFE-T Act “could force these local communities to drastically reduce the number of police on their streets and ultimately make their communities less safe.”
“I am strongly opposed to defunding the police in this way,” she said. “We are losing police officers in droves due to an environment that is so hostile to their hard work. We must incentivize getting quality officers to return to the force in every way we can, including through education incentives and expanding veterans' recruitment programs. I also believe we should be reallocating some of the criminal assistance to support mental health programs for our emergency responders who are so overworked and overstressed.”
The SAFE-T Act has been widely criticized primarily for eliminating cash bail in Illinois, “providing that criminal suspects will be detained before trial only in narrow circumstances,” Harris said.
“These circumstances are limited and include non-probational forcible felonies unless a prosecutor can show by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant is a willful flight risk or poses a specific, real and present threat of harm to a specific person in the community. Many violent crimes will not qualify under this law.”
Harriss said communities need to prioritize protecting families over protecting criminals.
“Violent offenders should be behind bars,” she said, “not on our streets hours after attacking women and children, not protected while looting stores in front of our police officers, and not on our prisoner review boards.”