Kankakee Times

State Sen. Jason Barickman (R-Bloomington) is calling for more changes to the Safe-T Act despite the passage of a trailer bill to fix egregious errors in the legislation. 

Barickman noted that despite the “trailer bill takes some good steps, it is still far away from what we need to keep Illinoisans safe."

“Today the Illinois Senate passed HB1095, a trailer bill to the controversial SAFE-T Act,” Barickman said on Facebook. “The quality of legislation is often determined by the process used to pass it, with good policy the result of open negotiations with all sides, transparency, and public scrutiny of the actual bill language. Since the beginning of this process, sponsors of the SAFE-T Act have worked behind closed doors, filing legislation at all hours of the night, rushing through flawed bills on partisan votes. It should come as no surprise that we are once again looking at a major bill with massive flaws.” 

He underlined a very important note and hopes that "at some point the sponsors of this legislation will change course and work with us toward that goal.” 

"This bill does not address the millions of dollars in costs that the SAFE-T Act will create, and it does little to empower judges to keep dangerous criminals behind bars," Barickman said. "Further, it actually takes away critical transparency from our criminal justice system. There is a strong demand from the public, as well as both sides of the aisle, for real reforms to our criminal justice system that still keep communities safe."

Senate Minority Leader John Curran said one of his goals is to roll back parts of the Safe-T Act noting that “the Democrats decided to go it alone on this issue two years ago." Curran, according to WSIU, added that the Democrats “placated the extremes of their base. And what they got was an extreme product that has caused nothing but divisiveness in this state over the last two years on the issues of balancing civil liberties and public safety.”

The Safe-T Act has been a center of attention in the 2022 campaign. The law would allow thousands of inmates who are currently being held in jails around the state while they await trial on serious crimes, to be released on Jan. 1. If the Safe-T Act is implemented as intended, those charged with the most heinous crimes—such as robbery, kidnapping, arson, second-degree murder, intimidation, aggravated battery, aggravated DUI, aggravated flight, drug-related homicide, and threatening a public official—will be freed, the Will County Gazette reported.

Of the 102 state lawyers, 100 were in favor of amending or repealing the Safe-T Act.