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* John Amdor and I were talking last week about the legislative efforts to pass a crime bill this session and during the course of the evening he mentioned a couple of bills that he thought were important. I asked him to submit something for possible publication. Amdor is a lobbyist with the firm Nekritz, Amdor and Andersson, which represents the John Howard Association, the Illinois Justice Project and the Juvenile Justice Initiative…
Over the past ten years, I’ve been fortunate to learn from law enforcement leaders about the challenges women and men in their field face and what they believe ought to change. When I discuss gun violence and prevention with my neighbors on the South Side of Chicago, it strikes me that their vision and desire for what policing and public safety should be isn’t so dissimilar from what law enforcement officers want.
The unifying thread between rank-and-file law enforcement and those they serve is the desire for mutual respect and trust founded on a common set of facts about community needs. They want a system where people know that their fundamental rights are honored. They also want a system where their person and property are secure.
Gun violence has risen across the country and it’s clear that communities in every part of Illinois don’t feel protected. Last year, the state continued a recent trend of increasing money for law enforcement and funded violence prevention programs at a level that finally began matching the scale of the problem. But that funding has not hit the streets and there isn’t a way for the public and policymakers to understand what is being done and how it’s working.
The system we have doesn’t allow information about public safety and security to flow between police, policymakers, and the public. Political choices determine how the government collects and distributes policing data. That means neither cops nor citizens have confidence that resources and manpower are distributed efficiently, effectively, or fairly.
The good news is that we have an opportunity to make new choices. There are proposals before the General Assembly right now that can help strip the politics from law enforcement and meaningfully contribute to stronger relationships between police and communities.
Leader Jaime Andrade has introduced HB5212. The bill would end the practice of recording shooting incidents as criminal damage to property. There aren’t many people who think that a bullet coming through a window is in the same realm as vandalism. But that’s what happens too often and it’s not fair to residents who feel scared in their own homes and can’t receive the resources they deserve when the data doesn’t support them.
Senator Elgie Sims’ SB3937 requires the Chicago Police Department to report their investigations’ “clearance rates.” The bill ensures the public can hold their leaders accountable and helps administrators more effectively allocate police resources throughout the city.
These are two examples of legislation that the General Assembly could pass to help continue expanding data-driven policing and evidence-based public safety. Alongside these, the state should better coordinate and measure the effectiveness of the billions spent each year on policing, probation, prison, and community-based violence prevention.
People understand gun violence, carjackings, and property crimes can’t be eliminated overnight. But they do expect they’re told the truth about the scope of the problems and the nature of the solutions. There’s an opportunity in the next two weeks to pass some bills that do just that. Let’s get it done.
Discuss.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 9:21 am
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== There are proposals before the General Assembly right now that can help strip the politics from law enforcement ==
I sincerely doubt this is possible.
Comment by Homebody Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 9:35 am
===I sincerely doubt this is possible===
He didn’t say it was a slam dunk nor that it could suddenly strip all the politics away. So, don’t argue like a child.
Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 9:36 am
== SB3937 requires the Chicago Police Department to report their investigations’ “clearance rates.” ==
Why does this not apply to every municipality in the state? Limiting this in such a way is exactly what is mentioned above how our system isn’t designed to allow for the flow of this information.
A bill like this, even if it isn’t implemented helps to cement the distinction that crime is somehow ‘worse’ in Chicago than the rest of the state. While the city of Chicago grabs the headlines due to the sheer numbers of people in the city, the rate per capita of violent crime is often higher in other parts of the state. In a few areas, it’s significantly higher.
== The bill ensures the public can hold their leaders accountable ==
Well, only the public living in cities with a population above 250k. Is there any justification for limiting this to only Chicago? There’s no added expense for a department to report this, no matter how small of a department it is. Police departments shouldn’t be the gatekeepers of the information on what is happening in a community. No department should be doing that.
Comment by TheInvisibleMan Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 9:45 am
I can’t imagine a field of public policy that is currently less tied to data and outcomes than criminal justice.
We see it every day on this blog when a criminal justice issue is brought up. People spouting ideas disconnected from reality. Similarly journalists report notions related to criminal justice (frequently drawn from PD press releases) without the level of skepticism they employ in other areas of public policy or with other public agencies and departments. These bills would be a welcome change.
Comment by JJJJJJJJJJ Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 10:08 am
I’m a really big fan of Sims’ bill, and would love to see it apply statewide.
I will quibble with Amdor’s language though. Increasing transparency and encouraging public data is the opposite of “stripping the politics” out of policing. I happen to think that’s a good thing; I consider police departments too unaccountable to public officials and to the public generally. Publishing clearance rates puts necessary political pressure on police departments to solve more crimes, the same way publishing test scores puts political pressure on schools to do better and publishing budgets puts political pressure on taxing bodies to be fiscally responsible. In a democracy, politics is one of the main mechanisms of accountability to the public.
Comment by vern Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 10:40 am
Not really sure how either of these initiatives would reduce crime. Clearance rates are low because for a multitude of reasons. Focus on the underlying reasons - if you just focus on the clearance rate, the numbers will be gamed to show an improvement.
Comment by Chicagonk Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 10:42 am
It’s got to be easier to focus on the underlying shortcomings of clearance rates when that data is measured and published.
More data and transparency is always better than less, especially for the single largest expenditure of most municipal budgets.
Comment by Dan Johnson Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 10:50 am
Well put Vern. I quibble with any derogatory use of the term “politics.” Politics, the competition over power in society, isn’t something that can be removed from these, or most, discussions. Pretending they can be lead to fewer conversations of substance, not more.
I like Amdor’s bills, but regret that he uses the “remove politics” rhetoric.
Comment by JJJJJJJJJJ Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 10:55 am
Our public safety spending is tied zero percent to outcomes.
Having “better data” does you little good when data has little influence on spending at the city, county or state level.
When crime increases, we spend more money on police because we think it will lower crime. When crime rates go down, we spend more money on police because “it’s working.”
Comment by Juvenal Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 10:59 am
I can’t believe there is any opposition to Leader Andrade’s bill. Damage to property from unlawful use of a firearm is much different than some punk tagging your garage. The law should reflect that and I was surprised to learn that it didn’t.
Comment by 47th Ward Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 11:45 am
Less preamble and more explanation of the bills would have been helpful.
Comment by King Louis XVI Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 12:05 pm
@Rich, == So, don’t argue like a child. ==
You may want to reconsider who started name calling on this post.
My point is that there are a number of powerful, influential groups that only care about things like criminal justice insofar as they can take political advantage of it. Despite many decades of empirical research about what works and what doesn’t, certain groups just don’t care.
The fundamental problem is you can’t “strip politics” when a significant portion of the political operators (not just politicians, but interest groups, including but not limited to the FOP, Sheriff’s organizations, etc.) aren’t going to go along with that idea.
There has been a fundamental divide in American politics for at least as long as I have been alive between people who care about actually identifying root causes and practice solutions to problems, and those who just want to grandstand and use political footballs to acquire and maintain power.
I think many of the efforts being discussed here are laudable. However I think it is supremely naive to think legislative changes are what will “strip the politics from law enforcement.” That won’t change unless or until there is a fundamental groundswell from American voters.
Comment by Homebody Monday, Mar 28, 22 @ 12:38 pm