Joliet Council Should Oppose Police Reform Bill: Jim Lanham

JOLIET, IL — Jim Lanham, a Joliet City Council candidate in the April 6 election, has asked Joliet's elected officials "to pass a referendum" in opposition to the highly controversial criminal justice reform bill that Gov. J.B. Pritzker is waiting to sign.

Lanham showed up at Tuesday night's Council meeting, and he spoke toward the end of the meeting during the audience participation time.

Lanham is one of 12 candidates vying for the three open seats on the Council. All three open seats are at-large positions.

In January, the Orland Park Village Board voted unanimously to call on Pritzker to veto HB 3653, which would enable a mass of criminal law reforms. So far, Joliet has not taken any position on the issue.

House Bill 3653 "was dishonestly legislated," Lanham said.

"It was done in the middle of the night on the last night of the lame duck session," he said.

Lanham went on to say, "it's dangerous to police officers, law-abiding citizens and crime victims. Right now, it's hard enough just to get a person arrested."

Lanham said he knows of one person in Joliet who got arrested four times in a week for battery "and it wasn't until the fourth arrest that he went to jail. He put someone in the hospital, and he still did not go to jail. Stuff like that is only going to get worse if this new bill passes."

As for Pritzker, the governor has 60 days to decide whether to sign the criminal justice reform bill into law, Lanham said.

The bill was authored by the Legislative Black Caucus, after protests against police brutality occurred in summer 2020.

If signed by the governor, the house bill would make Illinois the first state in the nation to end cash bail, starting in 2023. It would also require all officers to wear body cameras by 2025, expand the process for revoking the certification of officers found to have engaged in misconduct, and enact many other measures, including creating statewide use-of-force standards and expanding required training.

"I know there's probably a lot of concern that some civic groups may be opposed to you guys writing the referendum, but I think they're on the wrong side of the issue, and we should tell the governor to veto this bill," Lanham said at Tuesday's meeting. "It's bad. It's bad for public safety, victims, police, so I'd like the Council to consider that, either tonight or at a soon to come meeting ... I think the citizens would appreciate that too as well."