Dennis Tipsword, Illinois 105th District State Representative, expressed concerns about the SAFE-T Act, stating that its size and scope made it challenging to assess downstream consequences and warranted a more thorough review.
“My first problem with this bill is it’s about 752 pages if my memory serves me right,” said Tipsword, State Representative from Illinois. “and it touches over 250 current pieces of legislation. There was no way that anybody could wrap their head around 750 plus pages of legislation. It was dozens and dozens and dozens of other smaller bills that were just taken in their entirety and plastered together.”
The SAFE-T Act (HB 3653 / Public Act 101-0652) is an extensive criminal justice reform package in Illinois that covers areas such as policing, pretrial procedures, sentencing, and corrections. According to the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, the act assigns state agencies with implementation and data-collection responsibilities. The authority advises consulting the full act for precise statutory language.
Contemporary reports described the SAFE-T Act as a “massive, 764-page” bill signed into law in 2021. These reports highlight why lawmakers sometimes argue that large omnibus measures are difficult to scrutinize thoroughly. Coverage of the signing emphasized significant changes to pretrial practices and policing policies, reflecting the broad scope that critics cite when calling for more time for review and stakeholder input.
Implementation of the SAFE-T Act’s pretrial components—often referred to as the Pretrial Fairness Act—proceeded after being upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court as constitutional. The Illinois Courts’ pretrial resources note this ruling and list an effective date of September 18, 2023. This milestone is frequently mentioned in discussions about how the state moved away from cash bail and updated related court procedures.
Tipsword is a Republican member of the Illinois House representing District 105. He has a long history in law enforcement, including serving as chief deputy in the Woodford County Sheriff’s Office. His official General Assembly biography also highlights his local roots in Woodford County, previous small-business experience, and community involvement, providing context for his focus on public safety policy and legislative accountability.
___________
FULL, UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT
Prairie State Dennis Tipsword
Bryan Hyde: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Prairie State Wire Podcast. I’m Brian Hyde. My guest today is Legislator Dennis Hor, who represents the hundred fifth Illinois Legislative District and also has a distinguished career in law enforcement. And, and Dennis, first of all, great to have you on the podcast. Let’s, let’s have you just tell just a little bit about your background, who you are and, and where you come from, and then we can dive into a topic that is of great relevance.
Dennis Tipsword: Appreciate it. Thanks for having me today, Brian. So, I’m a, first and foremost, I’m a, I’m a 30 year police officer, so all of my time’s been done here in Woodford County, started out in a municipal setting and then moved to the sheriff’s office about 18 years ago. I’ve done undercover narcotics work. I’ve, I’ve done a lot involved in the law enforcement world.
I’ve been the chief deputy here at the sheriff’s office since 2014, so I’ve had this position for quite a while. I, our, the topic we’re gonna dis discuss today. The Safety Act is what brought me to the general Assembly. So when it passed in [00:01:00] 2021, I was, I was so frustrated and outraged, frankly, with, with the direction we were going, I started looking at a potential run for the State House.
Ultimately, I was successful with that. And I’m in my second term now as the state representative.Â
Bryan Hyde: We had the opportunity to talk to a number of citizen legislators from Illinois on this, uh, podcast, and it’s surprising how often the safety Act has come up, but you are the first one with the, with the long-term law enforcement background.
So I’m, I’m anxious to get your perspective on this for, for people who are, are hearing about or may have heard about it peripherally and aren’t sure exactly what it refers to. Describe for me what was the intended purpose of this act when it was passed?Â
Dennis Tipsword: Well, I, I think that it depends who you ask that question.
I, I think from what I heard from proponents of the, of the legislation was it was, it was a comprehensive criminal justice reform bill that would change policing in Illinois now was what [00:02:00] was, is criminal justice reform as this bill indicates, or, or what this bill is, did we really reform much or did we put a lot of roadblocks in the way of law enforcement?
I would say it’s, it’s the latter, you know? The, the problem, my, my first problem with this bill was, is it touches for, first of all, it’s about 752 pages if my memory serves me right and it touches over 250 current pieces of legislation. So, you know, we can remember. Some years ago, one of our federal legislators said, well, we really don’t know what’s in the bill until we pass it.
And I can tell you that’s exactly what happened in this bill because there was no way that anybody could wrap their head around 750 plus pages of legislation that touched, touched all these other current bills, and know exactly what those consequences or unintended consequences, downstream issues that this bill would pose.
It, it just, it wasn’t [00:03:00] possible for many reasons. One, just because the expanse of it, it is just so big. And, and, and secondly, the way it was brought out, it, it was put into a shell bill. So it didn’t go through, you know, the proper vetting through committee. You didn’t have the, the, the citizens of Illinois weighing in on their witness slips.
We didn’t have subject matter experts in the room. So none of those consequences were flushed out. And in fact, when you. When you read the bill and you, and you go through the bill, it’s not a flowing document. You can’t start at one end of it and read it to the other and, and walk away and say, wow, this, this was a well-written piece of legislation.
It, it was not. It’s because it was not that at all. It was. Dozens and dozens and dozens of other smaller bills that were just taken in their entirety and just plastered together to get to this 752 pages. So the problem in the first reading, or the first bill was [00:04:00] there were so many contradictions in in the bill from start to finish.
So we would talk about something in one in the beginning of the bill, and then we would call it something else in the middle because it was. Two different pieces of legislation that’s been, that’s been sandwiched into this one bill. So that was the one of the biggest concerns was just to try to get your mind wrapped around everything that was in this bill.
Now look, I’m not gonna say. There, there weren’t some good things that came out of it. Right? There was, there were a lot of training things that came out of it that were, were okay or good, you know, body cameras came out of this. I think body cameras are, are a good piece. I, I don’t like, I, I don’t, I don’t like the fact that the burden of paying for all that came back to the, the local agencies with, with, you know, no money to buy those body cameras.
That was. Tremendously expensive for our agency, and I know for lots of others, but it’s a mandate, it’s an unfunded mandate. But at the end of that day, the body cameras were a good, were, [00:05:00] were good for, for us moving forward in law enforcement. So I don’t wanna say there was nothing good in here, but there there was very little good in here.
Bryan Hyde: Talk to me about cash bail. I know that one of the concerns that I hear come up over and over again is the Safety Act has made it too easy for people who have been, you know, accused or charged with a crime, but are still waiting for their trial to be released. And then sometimes that includes, apparently some, some pretty dangerous defendants.
Dennis Tipsword: Yeah, it does. And, and look, th this is one area that I would’ve loved to have had. This cash bail issue pulled out and discussed Surgically, we could have fixed cash bail. I, I will yield and I will say, if you and I are both charged with a crime and we’re both, our bond is set at $500 each, well, what $500 is to you may not be what $500 is to me or the next person in line who gets a $500 bond or bail set.
We could have [00:06:00] worked and we could have fixed that. Uh, in my opinion, we could have easily targeted that and, and we could have had our court services throughout the state. That’s our probation department or, or anyone. Let’s face it, based on the money we’re we’re spending on the safety Act, we could have, we could have given this to any number of agencies that could have done this, but we could have done a financial impact study on every person before they go to see a judge.
And a judge could have then decided. What the appropriate amount of bond or bail would be. But we didn’t do that at all. We just struck it down completely. And so, so now then we’re left in this position where a state’s attorney has to petition the court. To ask for a person to be detained. Now, to do that, first of all, the person has to be on a list of detainable offenses, which is, you know, it, it’s, it’s, it’s not a real long list, but you have to land on one of those.
You have to be charged with one of those detainable offenses, [00:07:00] and then the state’s attorney has to prove that you’re either a flight risk or you are a, a danger to the community. So that maybe sounds. Fair, but like the flight risk part is, is a very difficult burden because I could, I, I could have a defendant that has failed to show up to court.
Half a dozen times. That’s not considered a flight risk in most cases. Literally, that person, the defendant would’ve had to have said something overtly during an interview or a conversation with law enforcement that says, you know what? I’m never coming back for trial. I’m going to Mexico and you’ll never see me again.
Okay. Then we might be able to, to use a flight risk, so the flight risk almost. Never comes into play that I’ve seen anyway. Now, someone up and down the state may disagree with that or have examples, but not that I’ve seen. And the danger part of it is getting harder and harder to prove also. And, and one thing well let, let’s, let’s stay on bail before I, before I kind [00:08:00] get off track here.
Like I said, I think we could have surgically approached bail reform, made it meaningful and, and because remember what bail, the intent of bail is for. A defendant to have skin in the game, something they’ll lose if they don’t come back to court. It’s, it’s the carrot to get the defendant to come back to court, and we’ve taken that completely away.
So there’s really. No advantage for someone to be in a hurry to come back to court. They can just not show up for their court date. There’ll be A-A-A-F-T-A warrant, which is really kind of like a civil action now. It’s not a warrant of old, and, and they can go through that process a number of times with FTAs and, and literally push their trial down the road.
A long time with not a lot of real consequences. So we’ve taken that bail, that bond out. And also, you know, we have to remember too that what, what that [00:09:00] bond was used for. So if you failed to show up to court, and let’s say you had a $500 bond. You lost that money, that money went back to the courts. Now it, it can be used in a lot of different things.
It can be used for your fines at the end of things, which is usually what it’s used for. But if you don’t show up to court, you, you forego that money. It goes back to the, the county, because the sheriff’s offices are the ones who operate and run the courts. So that money is then broken up and it goes to your state’s attorney, it goes to your circuit clerk, it goes to the sheriff’s office, it goes to so many different funds.
That pay for the operation of those courts and all those surfaces. Well, we’ve taken all that out now and there’s, there’s no way to get that money into the system other than coming back to the general fund, which ends up on property tax levies, which means everybody in the state’s gonna pay more property tax to, for that shortfall.
That’s not coming into the coffers and, and we really. [00:10:00] Don’t have any idea what that’s gonna cost us Statewide, there’s, I, I’ve not yet seen a, a good a a, a good set of data that shows how much money that’s really costing a statewide and how that’s gonna work. So again, there was, there were just so many consequences to just.
So abruptly taken bail out of the equation, and, and we could have, we could have done this so much better in a, in a surgical approach with subject matter experts at the table with a piece of legislation that sees the entire process goes through committee. Gets proven right because that’s how we get a good piece of legislation and then we put something in place that really will make a difference.
When it came to bail, we just, we chose not to do that. We chose just a blanket policy, everything.Â
Bryan Hyde: Dennis, you mentioned too that there, there’s the additional consideration of this person if they are still among the community. Know, is the community safe? You know, depending on, on what they, they stand accused of.
Talk to me, maybe illustrate for us, what, what does that look like when, when [00:11:00] someone is, is released, you know, in the name of, you know, pretrial fairness, but maybe they’re released into a community that is still at risk from them.Â
Dennis Tipsword: Well, well, I think, and I can, I can back up about two hours. We had a person released today and, and, and I think that this is, this is this loophole that we should be really.
Kind of looking at a lot more. So here in Woodford County, we have a team of deputies that work internet crimes against children. So any type of sexual crimes that’s out there on the internet, we have deputies that work on that. We had a guy we arrested yesterday, he was in court today. He was charged with indecent solicitation of a child, grooming and traveling to meet a minor.
So, so this person came in, extensive criminal history, been to prison. Many, many, many times our state’s attorney asked for detention and based on a current fourth district appellate overturn of a trial court in McLean County, we can’t hold that [00:12:00] person. So this person walked away. Now, this is a person who’s alleged to be traveling to meet a 15-year-old female, a 45-year-old man to meet a 15-year-old female to have sex with that, that that’s what he was coming for, and, and.
To say that this person is not a danger to the community or a society is just absolutely ridiculous. The, the conditions that were placed on him was he can’t have contact with anyone ever 18 under 18 years of age, and he can’t be on the internet and he will have a GPS ankle monitor on him. But other than the ankle monitor who is policing the fact that he’s not on the internet and he’s not.
In contact with anyone under 18 years of age. So these conditions that this act has placed on our judges and really tied the hands of our judges is frustrating because I could see it in our judge today. He was frustrating for, with the decision that he had to hand down, but based on this fourth district appellate ruling, [00:13:00] he had no choice.
So, so it, it is frustrating and, and, you know. In the beginning of all this, I heard a lot of the advocates talking about this would give more judicial discretion and judges would be able to, to kind of see the case for what it is. It’s absolutely not the case because if it’s not on the list of detainable.
You can’t argue that we’re gonna keep the person and, and if the state’s attorney, even if it is a good charge to keep, the state’s attorney still has to file the petition to detain. A judge can’t step over the state’s attorney and say, you know what? I wanna look, I wanna hear the, the facts of the case. I might want to detain this person.
They can’t do it. So we really limited the judicial discretion in all this. So when I, when I hear proponents of this act say that. Judges have so much more discretion. It, it’s just, it’s just not true. The judges here far, far less cases now than they did in the old system.Â
Bryan Hyde: Okay, let’s talk solutions now. I mean, [00:14:00] we, we have, we have a handful of years to look back.
It’s not like it’s been a few weeks and, you know, we’re, we’re throwing in the towel early here, there, there are at least a few years. We can look at what needs to happen to rectify some of the unintended consequences of the safety Act.Â
Dennis Tipsword: I, I think first and foremost, we have to start with the a, a broader list of detainable offenses.
That’s the first hurdle you have to land on. We have to, we have to have a wider list of those, those charges so we can start down that road that way. Then that gives the, the, the state’s attorney, the prosecutor, more latitude to go after detention. And I think, you know, you also have to remember that a defendant.
Is, is, is the burdens on the state to prove that the person should be detained? The, the, the defendant is entitled to release under the act unless the state can prove otherwise. And, and we can argue that a hundred ways from Sunday, right? If that’s good or bad, but. [00:15:00] I think that also like this fourth circuit, fourth district ruling that came out, the, the danger aspect was just too broad in their minds.
And this was also a sex crime over in McLean County, and it was just too broad. So this fourth district ruling came out. So we’ve, we’ve limited ourselves on who we can keep and who we can’t keep. And, and you know, that. That just puts these folks back out on the street who continue to commit crimes while they’re waiting for their trial to come up.
So, so I think that’s the biggest solution. Add, add a de a wider detainable list, make that net much bigger and, and then, you know, we can. We can start there now, in, in the general assembly, I’m on a, a committee or a, a task force, so to speak. It’s the Truth and Public Safety Working Group, and it’s a group of Republicans who we meet weekly while we’re in session and we interview subject matter experts.
We interview sheriffs, police chiefs, prosecutors, [00:16:00] retired judges, you know, you name it. Anybody who has a piece of the safety act and how that. How that affected their, their day-to-day office life and how it works and, and how they’re able to do their job. We interview those folks. We put together a huge comprehensive list of changes.
We all knew as Republicans in this, we were not gonna strike this. Completely down, right? We, we, we just weren’t gonna do that. There was no way we could accomplish that. So we decided a better approach would be to go into those issues where we’re having problems and our subject matter experts are coming back to us and saying, here’s an issue, here’s an issue.
And we would try to make changes in those. We had dozens of bills, and I can share those with you. I don’t have those handy now, but I can share those with you of. Items that we identified that needed a tweaking, I’ll call it, right? Not wholesale changes, but just things that would make the act better and smoother.
And so we worked on that [00:17:00] all session every week. We met, we had one meeting with the Democrat side. They took our, our, what we had discussed, we had about a half hour meeting and that was it. Never, never moved any farther, never cared about anything else. Have never heard any feedback, and so that’s the frustrating part.
We took the time to listen to the subject matter experts as we should, no matter what, what. The legislation is right. You can tell my blood pressure gets up talking about law enforcement and what we’re doing here, right? This is my life and this has been my world, but it doesn’t matter what it is. If it’s a, you know, a medical bill that’s coming through.
We should be talking with doctors and nurses and those folks on that side to, to find out what the, what the right answer is. Because for me to legislate out of my lane of profession. It’s ridiculous. I can’t do that. And, and nobody should try that coming the other way. So, you know, we, we just have to do a better job of, of.
[00:18:00] Legislating, you know, but, but we have our, our Truth in Public Safety Working Group was a phenomenal group. And, and we, you know, we had two other police officers on it with me and one former state’s attorney and two other attorneys in there on, on from the Republican General Assembly side. So we did an excellent job coming up with pieces that are just kind of common sense.
Changes to the Safety Act and, and we were just kind of dismissed in it. So it was, it was frustrating,Â
Bryan Hyde: Dennis. For, for people who want to get involved, people who recognize what you’re saying and say, you know what, I wanna see those, those changes made too. What can they do? Where can they get better informed?
Where can they let their voices be heard?Â
Dennis Tipsword: Yeah, so, so a couple things. So I know in I, and I think most reps and senators have a weekly newsletter, right? And that just kind of keeps you apprised of what’s going on in your state capitol, because let’s face it, E, even as much of a political junkie as I was before I got into the legislature.
It’s hard to keep track. You’re [00:19:00] raised in a family, you’re working, you’re doing all the things that you are doing to sustain life. So it’s hard to keep an eye on everything. But subscribe to our newsletters. Mine’s rep tip sword.com. If you live in the hundred and fifth, if you’re not already there, you know, jump on it every Friday, pretty much while we’re in session.
When we’re outta session, sometimes we run every two weeks, but we drop a a newsletter that will just tell you kind of a. 20,000 foot version view of what’s going on, from my opinion in Springfield. And obviously then you can see those things, kind of the hot topic items that are going on and decide how deep you want to get in with them.
If there is legislation out there, I would recommend everybody to go to the Illinois General Assembly website, file a witness slip if it’s something you’re against or a witness slip if it’s something you’re for. I can’t speak for everybody else, but I can. I promise you, if you watch me while I’m on the floor, when when votes are coming up and bills are on the board, one of my [00:20:00] stops are witness slips.
I can take a look at witness slips, and in just a few seconds I can get a snapshot of who’s for it, how many’s for it, how many’s against it, and what, what. Businesses, companies, entities are for it and against it. And it gives me a fairly good read. Now, you know, it’s a snapshot, right? But it gives me a fairly good read of the feeling out there in Illinois.
So to me. Absolutely witness slips, you know, get involved and, and let your voices be heard, so your legislator, your legislators know exactly where you are.Â
Bryan Hyde: Once again, we’ve been visiting with representative Dennis Shor, who is the, who represents the 105th Illinois legislative District. Dennis, thank you so much for spending time with us today on the Prairie State Wire Podcast.
Dennis Tipsword: Thank you, Brian. Appreciate it.
