Around the nation the Left is in effect legalizing crime in the name of racial equity. Illinois is ground zero in regard to this effort.
…Republican state legislators last week again aired their grievances with the 746-page SAFE-T Act. One of its many provisions will end cash bail, where a defendant is required to pay a percentage of the bail set by a judge to be released from prison — making Illinois the first state to do so.
…The broad-ranging SAFE-T Act also addresses police training, what equipment they have in the field, and makes reforms to prisoner rights.
Law enforcement is not permitted to purchase military equipment such as firearms of .50-caliber or higher and weaponized vehicles or aircraft. Officers are also not allowed to use chokeholds but are ordered to intervene when another officer is using excessive force.
By 2025, all law enforcement agencies will be required to have body cameras — these cameras have to be turned on when an officer is in uniform and responding to a call.
Detainees can make three phone calls within the first three hours of their time at the police station. Before handing over their cell phone, inmates can find these numbers in their cell phone contact list.
…Whether or not a detainee qualifies for pretrial release depends on how the judge decides. If the suspect is deemed a flight risk or a risk of endangerment to the community, he or she could remain behind bars.
To their credit, Republicans in the statehouse are fighting this tooth and nail, asking law enforcement for input in an effort to force revisions, and outright calling for repeal in one instance. Mayors around the state are absolutely apoplectic and with good reason. “No cash bail” after a judge okays your release sounds…well, not great, but reasonable enough. Until you hear the list of offenses that qualify for “no cash bail” consideration – honest to God, your jaw will hit the floor. Listen up, as Mayor Keith Pekau of Orland Village elucidates:
Go here and here to read the rest. The basic function of government is to maintain law and order. No more for the Left. In their pursuit of racial identity politics they are all on the side of criminals. That poor people, often minorities, in crime ridden areas need strict enforcement of the law most, never seems to enter into the calculations of the Left.
Judges I know are beside themselves and predict an immense crime wave with this lunatic legislation. With the abolition of cash bail, outside of a very limited list of forcible felonies pre-trial detention may not be imposed upon a defendant unless a court finds that the defendant “poses a specific, real and present threat to a person, or has a high likelihood of willful flight.” That is a very high standard that simply could not be met in the vast majority of cases. As a defense attorney I know that most judges would find it impossible to impose pre-trial detention under that standard except in very few cases where either a defendant has fled before while facing criminal charges or is facing trial involving a physical attack on a specific person motivated by animus. Then we have the whole issue of defendants failing to appear on criminal matters when they do not have a cash bail, and the State then has to jump through several hoops before an arrest warrant could be issued. This is an open invitation for criminals to regard the criminal justice system as a toothless paper tiger.
I predict vigilante movements throughout the State in response. White liberal elites may wish to live under jungle law, the rest of the State does not.
Democratic voters will pretend it isn’t happening. About 95% of them are impervious to events. You should have heard my sister talk rot during the CHAZ episode in Seattle. (She might zone back in when she discovers the resale value of her home is imploding, but maybe not). What’s interesting is that there were some vandalism-and-common-assault laden protests in Seattle in 1999 over an international conference held that year. She had no time for those hooligans and neither did the Mayor of Seattle. I don’t know what’s happened to her brain or that of the political class in the intervening decades.
:adds notes to road trip plans, subset, places to avoid:
Legalization of crime is misleading. This suggests that they are merely not enforcing the law, as if anyone can get away with anything. They are using non-enforcement of the law as a weapon against their enemies, and as a means to show chaos among the voting blocs they trust to vote for them out of fear. If it is more convenient for them to use the law to achieve these aims, they will.
Thus if someone they do not like owns a business they will not enforce shoplifting laws against people who rob him, making it impossible for him to run a business. But if the owner then decides to shoplift he will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Illinois is actually two states; Chicago area and downstate. The folks outside Chicago will find find it quite easy to defend themselves and many are already armed. Chicago’s restrictive firearms laws will make it very difficult for those in the most affected groups, minorities, senior citizens, lower income persons, to defend themselves.
“I predict vigilante movements throughout the State in response.”
Somehow I get the sense these Soros-funded DAs will come down on these vigilantes like a ton of bricks.
“White liberal elites may wish to live under jungle law, the rest of the State does not.”
Of course they don’t. They just want to force the rest of us to do so.
Somehow I get the sense these Soros-funded DAs will come down on these vigilantes like a ton of bricks.
Good luck doing that in almost all of the 102 counties where there are no Soros prosecutors. Even in Cook I suspect nothing will be done if the Latin Kings take the law into their own hands as they did in 2020, stopping the riots from spreading into their turf.
Don, do you think the average Joe who happens to take the law into his own hands to protect himself will be left alone like an organized criminal outfit like the Latin Kings?
[…] from The American Catholic: The Legalization of Crime – Donald R. McClarey, […]
Depends upon he county Greg and what action has been taken. The dismay that the Safe-T act is causing in Illinois cannot be overstated. I suspect Vigilante committees will begin by observing defendants perceived as dangerous by the courts. I think such defendants might be “invited” to leave the county. Sympathetic staffers within courthouses might pass on surreptitiously information about such defendants. As an officer of the court I am not recommending such activities, but when there is a break down in the legal system, vigilance committees have arisen throughout American history. Another prediction is that the on going exodus from Cook county will greatly increase in volume.
The arguments against the death penalty includes the assertion “of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system.” The actions covered by this article show the increasing breakdown of the penal system and invalidates this claim.