* Illinois Times…

Inspired by reform efforts in Ireland and Germany, Illinois activists are working to pass legislation that would offer more rehabilitation opportunities for youth offenders, allowing them to get their lives back on track and stay out of prison.

Senate Bill 2156, which has passed the Senate and moved to the House, is the first step by bill sponsor Sen. Rachel Ventura, D-Joliet, to improve Illinois’ juvenile justice system.

The bill would create a child reform task force, which would be tasked with gathering data statewide to gauge the effectiveness of the state’s juvenile correction centers. In addition, the task force would be charged with offering rehabilitative, community-based alternatives to juvenile detention.

Ventura said she was inspired to sponsor the bill after meeting with Ireland’s ministers of justice and law enforcement officials. She saw the differences in attitude toward repeated incarceration. Ventura said repeat offenders in the United States are viewed as the problem, while in Ireland, officials see repeat offenders as a failure of the system to properly address why someone continues to act out.

* 25News Now…

Senator Dave Koehler (D-Peoria) introduced Senate Bill 1607 to continue the research of an Underground Railroad task force he helped develop a couple of years back. […]

Senator Koehler said the task force finished its work last fall and recommended that legislators establish an Illinois Freedom Trail Commission to continue gathering that vital information. That is where SB1607 comes into play. […]

“Having a data center that would collect all these stories and all this information of what’s going on in Illinois would be an important first step for people to take if they say, ‘Yeah, I want to find out what’s going on in my area.’” said Koehler. […]

Koehler’s bill passed the Senate unanimously on April 9. The Senator said he believes the House of Representatives and Governor JB Pritzker will show their support.

* WAND…

A plan ensuring 9-1-1 dispatchers know how to properly teach people to perform CPR over the phone is one step closer to becoming law. […]

Experts have told lawmakers in the House and Senate that the barrier to entry for effective T-CPR is incredibly low and the training requires minimal investment compared to long term healthcare savings and life saves. […]

Senate Bill 1295 passed unanimously out of the House Police & Fire Committee and now moves to the House floor. The proposal passed unanimously out of the Senate earlier this month.

The American Heart Association said more than 350,000 people experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrest annually, but only one in ten people survive. The organization said this change could give more people the chance to survive.

* Center Square…

Illinois may join a growing number of states that would equip public schools with silent panic alarms in case of an emergency.

New Jersey was the first state to pass what is being called Alyssa’s Law in 2020. Six other states followed suit and 13 more are considering similar legislation. Alyssa’s Law is named after Alyssa Alhadeff, who was killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting in Parkland, Florida. […]

[The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Janet Yang Rohr, D-Naperville,] didn’t provide any cost estimates, but a school district in Florida recently approved a five-year, $3.8 million contract with a company that makes wearable panic buttons. […]

The law would require, for the 2026 fiscal year, the State Board of Education to issue a competitive solicitation to contract for a mobile panic alert system that may be used by each school district.

Alyssa’s law did not make deadlines to get out of the House.

* WAND…

A bill heading to the Illinois House floor could help provide important data surrounding firefighter deaths. […]

Sponsors said it is important to evaluate the types of death these first responders are experiencing, whether it is suicide or various types of cancer.

“If the bill is passed before June 1, 2025, then it would go into effect January 1, 2026,” said Rep. Anna Moeller (D-Elgin). “If passed after May 31, it would go into effect June 1, 2026.”

This proposal passed unanimously out of the House Police & Fire Committee Thursday. Senate Bill 1446 gained unanimous support in the Senate earlier this month.

* Illinois Times…

A bill currently being considered by the General Assembly is aimed at making life easier – and more profitable – for small craft beer companies throughout the state. “The majority of Illinois liquor law is pretty much from the 1930s, like Prohibition era,” said Brent Schwoerer, owner, founder and brewmaster at Springfield’s Engrained Brewing Co.

This spring, Schwoerer has plans to open an Engrained “brew deck” at the new Scheels Sports Park, which will be located just across the street from the Engrained restaurant and brewpub, at the MacArthur Boulevard and Interstate 72 interchange. In order to get its products in stores and other retail locations, companies like Engrained can either work with a large distributor or else bring the beer to customers. But under current Illinois liquor laws, Schwoerer would be legally prohibited from carting his own beer across the road to the new sports park due to a strict 200-barrel annual limit on self-distribution.

“We have a lot of excess capacity,” said Schwoerer. “I can do 1,500 barrels out of this facility – I’ll probably do 200 barrels worth of beer just (at Scheels Sports Park).” This potentially means Engrained would be forced to either scale back or even eliminate all other distribution efforts. “Which sucks,” he added.

Schwoerer said that there are 40 breweries in the state of Illinois with the same problem. Many have already reached the 200-barrel cap and are now being financially impacted. […]

Enter SB 1622, introduced to the General Assembly this past February by Illinois State Senator Cristina Castro, D-Elgin. The bill is described as an amendment to the Liquor Control Act of 1934 and would “increase the self-distribution limit for class 3 brewers that meet certain requirements” from the current maximum of 6,200 gallons of beer to 77,500 gallons.

SB1622 missed its extended April 11 committee deadline.