A suburban Illinois Republican mayor has warned crime in the Prairie State could “spiral out of control” after a new criminal justice overhaul measure is implemented next year.
Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau railed against the SAFE-T Act to Fox News Tuesday. The controversial measure downgrades some crimes, eliminates cash bail, and treats violent suspects under house arrest with more leniency.
“When I said that this is the most dangerous law I’ve ever seen, I believe that,” said Pekau, who is running for a seat in the House.
The 764-page law was passed in Springfield in the predawn hours earlier this winter with no debate or formal hearings, former justice officials wrote in the Chicago Tribune. It was slated to go into effect on New Year’s Day.
The SAFE-T Act will set a higher standard for judges to determine if some suspects — including those charged with second-degree murder — are flight risks in lieu of setting cash bail, and will allow them to leave house arrest for up to 48 hours before being charged with escape.
The new measure also expands police training, limits use of force and enhances officer misconduct safeguards.
Pekau said the SAFE-T Aact is the “most dangerous” bill he’s ever seen.
Proponents claim the reform bill will make inroads against institutional racism, but critics like Pekau warned it will increase crime, spread fear and encourage vigilantism.
“I think we can project that if criminals are allowed to run free and police officers can’t protect citizens, citizens are going to start protecting themselves and take the law into their own hands,” the mayor of a village of 59,000 outside Chicago said.
Pekau told the outlet that trespassing would be dropped from a Class A misdemeanor to Class B under the measure, meaning officers in his village would no longer be able to remove a suspect from a victim’s property.
“Well, now they can’t arrest, they can only write a ticket,” he said. “So, they get to stay in that business, on your property, at your house, etc.”
Protesters argue with Chicago police after trying to topple the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park during a rally calling for the defunding of cops on July 17, 2020. TNS“We create potential anarchy because law enforcement can’t do their job and then people feel that they have to do that job,” he said. “People aren’t trained in the use of force. They’re not trained to de-escalate situations.”
“Lots of bad things can happen out of this, and it could potentially spiral out of control relatively quickly.”
The law was proposed in reaction to the nationwide protests over widespread police brutality against black suspects in 2020.
“We’d be ending wealth-based jailing and restoring the presumption of innocence in the courtroom, which is something that is really under fire and it is not valued under our current system,” Kareem Butler, pretrial justice fellow of the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, told the Daily North Western.
New York City has been grappling with a significant rise in violent crime since the state passed a similar controversial bail reform law in 2019. The Democrat-approved bill has become a major issue in New York’s tightening governor’s race, with Republican candidate Lee Zeldin calling for its repeal.
However, data released by the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services showed that the rate of recidivism for those out on bail had dropped slightly in each of the two years since the bill was approved in Albany.
Pekau is seeking to unseat Rep. Sean Casten in the blue suburban district. An analysis from The Economist last week showed the Democratic incumbent had a 95% chance of winning a third term.
