Carlton Mayers II, an attorney and police reform consultant who worked with lawmakers on some of the original language of the SAFE T Act, said that the original bill didn’t come with any funding for ILETSB’s new responsibilities, which had to be appropriated the next year. He added that the agency also still lacks administrative rules, which are proposed by state agencies and then approved by the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules (JCAR).
Those administrative rules would lay out not only the processes for discretionary decertification, but could also speak to things like what’s required of a department’s background investigation, which right now is only required to include a check of the Officer Professional Conduct Database.
In a statement, a spokesperson hired by ILETSB pointed to its “multiple mandates to implement” for its delay in “the establishment of discretionary decertification hearings.”
“We are committed to leading this work thoughtfully and deliberately to ensure our law enforcement maintains the highest level of professional standards, and have made significant progress in building this new initiative from the ground up,” the statement continued. “We have engaged a range of partners and studied best practices from across the country to ensure we get this right from day one.”
The spokesperson wrote that the agency “anticipates” that “day one” will come in the “4th quarter of 2024.”
“We’re going to see more Sonya Masseys and more law enforcement agencies [claiming] they didn’t know” about their reporting requirements, Mayers said, until the administrative rules are in place and have teeth backing them.
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