Legislative Committee Report                                         

November, 2004

The Legislative Committee will be meeting December 7^th in Pontiac to discuss legislation for the new General Assembly beginning in January.  While budget priorities will once again be the number one concern of the Legislative Committee, there are several issues pending from last year that will be revisited next year.  They include:

1.     Sex Offender Management Board amendments.  There remains a problem with plea agreements and evaluations of offenders that needs to be resolved.

2.     Juvenile Transfers.  There will be further interest to continue to reverse the recent trend to increase automatic and discretionary transfers of juveniles to adult courts.

3.     Raising the age of a juvenile.  This issue has divided IPCSA and some internal response needs to be promulgated.

4.     Drug Court Proposals from Chicago Metropolis 2020. The Chicago Metropolis 2020 Project, a planning group funded by the Commercial Club of Chicago, (Senate Amendment #2 to House Bill 1875) would have done the following:

a.      Mandate the establishment of Drug Courts in all counties over 50,000 population (there are 29 such counties and approximately 20 counties have voluntarily established Drug Courts)

a)     Eliminate all Criminal Justice Information Authority funding to all circuits in which a mandated county did not establish a Drug Court

b)    Establish a base line target of the average number of offenders charged with drug crimes over the last three years, then in the first four months of operation of a Drug Court, a county had to admit 25% of the baseline, annual number to the Drug Court program

c)     If a defendant successfully completes a Drug Court program, then all drug charges must be dropped, regardless of all prior convictions

d)    Require the county to apply for Federal funding for their Drug Court program

e)     Require the AOIC to provide training for Drug Court programs

f)      Require the Department of Human Services to fund all treatment programs of the Drug Courts.

5.     The Chicago Metropolis 2020 Project also had a second proposal to create a new Department of Juvenile Justice by removing the Juvenile Division from the Illinois Department of Corrections. As contained in House Bill 575, the proposal would have created more requirements before a juvenile could be sent to a detention center. 

6.     The Legislative Committee will also discuss any proposals for legislation submitted by any of the other committees of IPCSA.

Copies and status of legislation can be found at: http://.www.legis.state.il.us

Respectfully submitted, Michael J. Shaughnessy, Chair