Prairie State Wire

Less than two weeks before the election, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said on the campaign trail that changes need to be made to the SAFE-T Act.

However, the governor did not call a special legislative session to amend the bill, which drew criticism from People Who Play by the Rules Pac, an organization that has adamantly opposed the SAFE-T Act.

“J.B. Pritzker has finally broken down and called for explicit changes to the SAFE-T Act, finally admits he was wrong," Mike Koolidge, PBR spokesman, said. "Finally admits we, The People Who Play By The Rules PAC, the 58 Democrat and Republican State’s Attorney’s suing him over it, and the vast majority of Illinoisans and Americans were right to demand repeal of this worst law currently on the books passed by any legislative body in the nation. Still, Pritzker is doing absolutely nothing concrete about it.”

The SAFE-T Act is a controversial law passed by the Illinois State Legislature in January 2021 that deals with many aspects of criminal justice reform, including banning cash bail, prohibiting pre-trial detention for several crimes, and increasing training and equipment requirements for police departments. The bill passed the General Assembly and Pritzker signed the bill a few days later.

The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA) website states that the SAFE-T Act enacts extensive reform impacting many areas of the criminal justice system, including pre-arrest diversion, policing, pretrial, sentencing, and corrections.

The most controversial aspect of the SAFE-T Act is its elimination of cash bail in the state of Illinois. The bill noted it will be “presumed that a defendant is entitled to release on personal recognizance” and may be detained thereafter if they violate certain conditions listed in 725 ILCS 5/110-2.

While campaigning in Lake County this week, Pritzker was asked about the controversy around the SAFE-T Act, The Center Square reported. Pritzker responded by stating there needs to be changes made to clarify what he called "misinformation," the story said.

Dan Proft, president of PBR PAC Dan Proft provided this statement to the Prairie State Wire: “That's quite a transformation the governor has made from calling 100 of the state's 102 county state's attorneys 'fear mongers’ and ‘liars’ to suggesting possible wording changes to suggesting his Purge Law may or may not result in violent criminals being released from prison to now suggesting some explicit prohibition on releasing violent criminals.”

He added that Pritzker “cannot just amend a law he signed by executive fiat” and if he “was serious about amending it, he would call for a special legislative session and he would call for a meeting of legislative leaders in advance of such a special session to discuss the parameters of the session.

State Senator Craig Wilcox made the point in a recent statement that there “are three people with the authority to call the Legislature back into session, and they include Pritzker, Senate President Don Harmon, and House Speaker Emanuel Welch, the McHenry Times reported.