Some Legislators Want Changes to Police Training Standards
A joint legislative committee was seemingly split on how to best implement police reform following months of unrest after the high-profile killings of Black men by police officers around the country. Members of the Joint Special Committee on Public Safety and the Senate Criminal Law Committees weren’t split along party lines, it seemed, as Democrats and Republicans often echoed sentiments from members across the aisle.
In a lengthy hearing conducted over Zoom Tuesday, lawmakers heard testimony ranging from police chiefs and law enforcement supporters to an American Civil Liberties Union lobbyist calling for sweeping reform to policing in Illinois. Karen Sheley, Director of the ACLU of Illinois’ Police Practices Program recommended reducing the ability for law enforcement to use force.
"Without meaningful restrictions on police use of force, every interaction with police, even for traffic stops and minor violations, creates the potential for a deadly interaction," she said.
Others, like Rep. Anne Stava-Murray (D-Naperville) wondered if training left police with inhering bias, what she called “cultural competence,” like describing a suspect in a training exercise as a “Black man.”
But University of Illinois at Chicago John Marshall Law School professor Samuel Jones claimed the problem with police brutality doesn’t come from a lack of training, but, he says, an inherent racial bias by some officers. For that, he says, there is no training.
“I agree with that 1,000%” said State Rep. Margo McDermed (R-Mokena).
Representatives of law enforcement called the issue far more complicated.
Chuck Gruber, a retired police chief in South Barrington, Elgin, and Quincy, who now works as a consultant on policing, says reform begins by identifying the so called “bad apples” early on.
“There are a lot of police officers in Illinois, and very few go bad,” he says. “We have to find ways to identify them early on. It’s costly, it’s hard, it’s difficult, and it’s traumatic, but we’ve gotta do it.”
Oak Book Police Chief James Kruger questioned whether new statewide standards would work for all police departments in Illinois.
“Policing in a large urban area compared to the rest of the state is very different,” he says.
Kruger says psychological testing for an applicant costs between $1,000 and $2,000, and some smaller communities can’t afford the additional testing in addition to formal training like at the University of Illinois Police Training Institute.
He says while instances of force often make headlines, it is often not the first option.
“It’s rare to see officers who want to use force,” he says. “It’s [used] a lot less often today.”
A Washington Post study shows 105 people have been shot and killed by police in Illinois since 2015.
Even though the national mood appears to be moving toward drastic reform in policing, Gruber warns “reform takes time.”