Prepared TestimonyPublic Safety and Violence Prevention Task ForceJanuary 21, 2022
Remarks below1. Chief Mitchell R. Davis IIII would like to thank Speaker of the House [Chris] Welch for having the foresight to convene this Public Safety & Violence Prevention Task Force. I would also like to thank the chairpersons, Representative LaShawn Ford, Representative Fran Hurley, and all the members of the House of Representatives that make up this Task Force, for the opportunity to come before you today. My name is Mitchell Davis. I am the Chief of Police for the Village of Hazel Crest, but today I am honored to be here in my capacity as President of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police. Many of us have tirelessly collaborated over the past year and a half to address the demands by members of our communities for reforms in law enforcement. The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police is proud to have been a part of that process and we are proud of the work that we have and continue to do. We see the formation of this Task Force that specifically focuses on Public Safety and Violence Prevention as a show of commitment to the wholistic quest for equitable quality of life for all Illinoisans. The processes during the development and subsequent amendments to the SAFE-T Act have not been perfect, but they have evolved into a productive collaborative vehicle that has resulted in stakeholders of all kinds coming together and finding common ground. I pray that the application of whatever recommendations that are birthed from this task force are developed and brought to fruition through a similar process, and the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police stands ready and eager to be a collaborative partner. Our communities are up in arms about the current challenges that we are facing related to public safety and violence, and rightfully so. But to find effective solutions, we must first be honest about how we got here. I am sure that most of us are familiar with the quote, “Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” It is my personal belief that we are where we are today because of many factors. One factor consists of the many systemic societal inequities that have and still exist, both racially and in marginalized communities. Another factor was the defunding of social services programs. Another factor has been the COVID pandemic and its effect on all of us. There are other factors that could be listed, but a factor that I believe to have been a major contributor throughout our history that we need to learn from is how consistently members of our society operate with the “it’s not my problem” mentality in matters that don’t directly affect them. What do I mean by “it’s not my problem” mentality? Problems with violence and public safety are not new. They have always existed, especially in marginalized communities and communities of color, but far too often members of society that are outside of those communities have been apathetic to this plight. One thing that has shown itself to be true in recent years and has ultimately brought us together today is that turning a blind eye to the challenges in one segment of our society will ultimately result in those challenges spilling over into all parts of our society. Here is a personal example. I have three sons, ages 32, 31, and 30. All of my sons have attended college, two were college athletes, two are Navy veterans, and one is now a civil engineer. Something that all three of my sons have in common is that in their young lives they have all been beaten by groups of unknown offenders to the point of having to have been hospitalized. One son almost lost his eye, and another son would have been beaten to death had bystanders not intervened. No one has ever been arrested in any of these instances and you never heard about my sons in the news. Why? Because things like this happen in our communities. As sad as they are, they are not surprising. But now that instances like these are becoming commonplace in other communities, there is new a sense of urgency. Here is a personal observation. In the 1980s and 1990s crack cocaine devastated marginalized communities, and heroin had been in those same communities for decades, but society as a whole looked upon it and said, “It’s not my problem. They are a bunch of drug addicts that should do better for themselves. Just lock them up.” Well, now that opioids and heroin have reached ALL communities, there is now an “opioid crisis” that is a national health crisis that is receiving almost unlimited resources. Why do I share these stories and opinions? I share them to reinforce my belief that when we ignore the plight of any segment of our UNITED States of America, it eventually becomes the plight of all of us. Let me take a moment to go back to the “opioid crisis.” While I am absolutely in favor of the attention and resources that it is getting, it is my opinion that for the attention and resources to be equitably distributed it should be titled the “substance abuse” crisis not just the “opioid crisis,” but that is another conversation for another task force. The reason that I bring it up here is to make the point that when looking through an empathetic lens, accountability is not always punitive in nature. Accountability without resources will never result in progress. Let me make myself perfectly clear. There are predators that absolutely need to be locked up and away from society, and there are people who commit offenses that should require a payment of time behind bars. But the vast majority of people that the criminal justice system encounters will not serve time, or they will ultimately end up back in our communities. We have to systematically evaluate each person and provide the appropriate resources to allow them the opportunity to succeed in our society if we want to get this thing right. We have to find a happy medium for being able to equitably enforce laws without forgetting the countless victims, their families, and lifetime suffering and trauma that they often endure. Public safety and violence prevention are not a police matter; they are matters for all of us to address. Being pro-good policing should not be a bad thing. Being pro-community should not be a bad thing. There are people in policing that believe that the community shouldn’t have anything to say about what we do in our profession; conversely, there are members of the community that want nothing to do with police officers of any kind. Both sides are entitled to feel the way that they feel, but until we are able to work together in spite of our differences, we will never fully reach our potential in equitably addressing the concerns of public safety and violence in ALL communities. There is a saying that I use that says, “When things are better for everybody, things are better for everybody!” If we keep that in our minds and in our hearts, we can’t go wrong. With me today are Chief Marc Maton and Chief Kenny Winslow. Chief Maton is the Chief of Police for the Lemont Police Department and is the 3rd Vice President of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police in addition to being the Chair of our Legislative Committee. Chief Winslow is the Chief of Police for the Springfield Police Department and an Executive Board Member of the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police in addition to being one of our subject matter experts on bodycams. Chief Maton will address your question about “What laws need to be changed?” and Chief Winslow and I will address your remaining questions about specific challenges that law enforcement faces. Chief Winslow will give the downstate perspective, and I will give the Cook County perspective. 2. Chief Marc Maton
Thank you for convening this forum and inviting our participation. I think the focus on these issues is long overdue. We see the stories every night about the increasing crime, and probably that’s a big reason we are here today. Not just here, other cities are experiencing crime, just maybe not to this magnitude. But crime has not increased across the board. Just certain mobile invasive crimes against persons. What is fueling this wave is anonymity. Crimes have increased as the likelihood for detection has evaporated. It isn’t just one causal ingredient. Various cultural, law and policy changes over the past two decades have converged to set the stage for certain crimes to be committed without the likelihood of detection. We saw this begin several years ago when offenders realized they could flee, and cops were not permitted to pursue. Add a stolen vehicle to that equation, and our technology is defeated. The current health crisis (COVID pandemic) added masking to the anonymity soup. The crimes that are fueling this new wave are all crimes that are mobile and the risk of detection is low. Investigations into shootings, robbery, burglary and theft all heavily hinge on the positive identification of the perpetrator. If committing these serious and invasive crimes against persons is calculated as low risk, no deterrence exists to prevent society from increasing lawlessness. So, the challenge for police is this: We can’t identify them; if we do, we can’t catch them because they run; if we catch them we can only prove a single property crime, so they are released right away, and the charges are invariably pled down. We have created a low risk/high reward atmosphere for these crimes. Our strategy should be to use laws, tactics and technology to defeat the anonymity of crime, and move that risk/reward equation back north of center. Fear of detection and fear of enforcement need to real in order to reestablish deterrence. LAWS We have a bill in LRB (Legislative Research Bureau) to create a felony for stealing a car on the residential curtilage. It is an invasive crime and will be similar to Home Invasion and Burglary with its own elements.
The 1972 Kansas City Patrol experiment resulted in a new model of policing where cops sat in their cars and moved from dispatched call to call. Society realized that this was not the paradigm they wanted for American policing and spent the next 50 years and hundreds of millions of dollars in establishing and developing community policing, Problem Oriented Policing, targeted operations. Now in 2022 we have come full circle, and cops are back in their cars waiting to respond to calls. It is not that police leaders don’t know what to do to stop this latest wave of crime. They do. But they no longer have the resources, policy and public will in their toolkits to deploy the tactics they have learned over the last 50 years. They are not lying down; they see media, proposed legislation, and community commentary and think that this role is the expected one: that the community wants a less aggressive approach to policing. I’ll stop here and turn it over to Chief Winslow to address many of the specific questions you forwarded. 3. Deputy Director Kenny Winslow (notes)
[I am Kenny Winslow, chief of police at the Springfield Police Department, from which I am retiring next week and going to work part time for the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police.] The subject matter of this hearing will be on Law Enforcement. You are expected to present on and answer questions on the following. Below are the notes that Chief Winslow used for his testimony.
Contact: Also: Ed Wojcicki, ILACP Executive Director |