Bills Aimed at Public Safety and Transparency Fail to Garner Support for Vote
Three proposed bills aimed at preventing gun violence and increasing transparency and accessibility for the public of police activity failed to receive a vote this past spring session despite being introduced at the start of the year. Those bills were known as Karina’s Bill, the Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act, and the Homicide Data Transparency Act. Karina’s Bill, named after Karina Gonzalez and her 15-year-old daughter who were murdered by their husband/father when they had an active order of protection against him, would both clarify the process for removing guns after being ordered to do so by a judge and expand the protection for “intimate partners” not just a spouse or co-parent. The Homicide Victims’ Families’ Rights Act would create a pathway for families to petition a police agency to assign an open cold case for an unresolved murder to a new detective. The Homicide Data Transparency Act would require law enforcement agencies to publish various information about the number of homicides and shootings over a set period of time, along with their clearance rate, monthly via their website. State Representative Kam Buckner, who was lead sponsor for the measure that deal with victims family rights and data transparency, is hopeful that the bills would be voted on during the upcoming fall session, saying, “It’s just the way that Springfield works, but we got to stay on it and do all we can to get it over the finish line.” Adding about the need for the bills he sponsored, Buckner stated, “This is about making sure that people who have suffered these unthinkable fates have their police departments and their government working for them,” he said, “that these families don’t get left behind.”
Data Shows Violent Crime Rates Increased in Chicago from Last Year
Recently published data saw 7.6% increase in violent crimes from July 2023 through June 2024, with robberies making up 1 in 3 of those violent crimes. Unfortunately for Chicago residents, as violent crimes levels grew to their largest in 5 years, the arrest rate for felonies dropped to their lower rate at just 10.8%. Race and location appear to play a role in the chances someone is the victim of a robbery, with white Hispanic residents making up the largest percentage of victims followed by African Americans, however, the released data shows that nearly all areas and demographics in Chicago were affected to various degrees. Proponents of the recently stalled bills believe that the passage of the bills that would bring increased transparency and could help alleviate some of these problems by making the information more widely available, as current residents have expressed their disapproval with the status quo and local efforts at handling of the ongoing violence.
