Change, Part 2

Dear Neighbor,

Yesterday I shared with you some of the changes I'm fighting for right now. I'm urging the police to de-escalate, to avoid violence. I'm urging the county not to book people in Cook County Jail, and I'm calling on the city to immediately restore services to communities.

Today I'd like to discuss some of the policies we'll need to enact as soon as we're on the other side of these protests.

WHAT I'LL FIGHT FOR WHEN THIS IS OVER

We will need to make serious structural reforms to police departments across the state to prove to communities that we take their outrage seriously.

I'm a state legislator, which means I don't know much about the city-level reforms that should be considered. But I can tell you about a few bills we should take up in Springfield immediately.

One, by Rep. Kam Buckner, would require that a special prosecutor be appointed in any officer-involved death. Rep. Carol Ammons filed a bill to make it a crime for officers to deliberately turn off body cameras, and that should be extended to obscuring badge numbers as well, a tactic we've seen often during these protests. And I've introduced legislation to remove the requirement of a sworn affidavit when civilians file complaints against police. That requirement creates fear of retribution, and serves as a major deterrent to bad-apple cops being named and disciplined.

Any officers who do violence to nonviolent people or use excessive force — including those officers who beat peaceful protesters during these days — must be charged with crimes and prosecuted. Again, anything less would dishonor the memories of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the countless others these protests are for.

And beyond legislating police reform, we should take on meaningful reforms to the criminal justice system as a whole. We need to abolish the poorhouse and get rid of cash bail — freedom shouldn't be a commodity for sale. We need to end the felonization of low levels of addictive drugs — people need treatment, not prison. And we need to address the injustice of incarcerating sick and elderly people for decades for crimes of their youth. 

These kinds of reforms might just give those protesting today the confidence that their voices matter, that their government hears them, that the system can change for the better.

Sincerely,

-Will