Law and Justice

Alliance Opposes Proposed 

Gang Asset Forfeiture Ordinance

    ILLINOIS - (ACLU) - 1/30/2022 - An alliance of faith-based and anti-violence community leaders have joined policy organizations and government agencies to call on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to drop her plan to use new civil asset forfeiture powers in response to gun violence in Chicago. Organizations opposing the ordinance include the ACLU of Illinois, Shriver Center on Poverty Law, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, and others.

    The mayor and Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown have suggested that civil asset forfeiture will target “street gangs” to reduce crime, but opponents believe there is no evidence to support this approach.

    Pastor Marshall Hatch, New Mt. Pilgrim MB Church in West Garfield Park, an opponent of the proposed ordinance, said, “Trust between the police department and our community is already low. This scheme to attack families and their households wholesale for the suspected criminal activities of an alleged family member will be enforced only in Black and Brown communities. This scheme will not reduce violence. It will deepen distrust and further destabilize fragile families and poor communities. It’s morally wrong.”

    Reverend Ciera Bates-Chamberlain, executive director of the anti-violence organization Live Free Chicago and its statewide affiliate, Live Free Illinois, said, “This proposal contradicts public health strategies in the mayor’s own plan, Our City, Our Safety. This is a smoke and mirrors approach that detracts from proven strategies that actually save lives.”

    Cook County Public Defender Sharone R. Mitchell, Jr. explained that the proposed Chicago asset forfeiture ordinance merely directs more punishment at communities that need resources and support. It creates a financial incentive for the city to confiscate property from people who are several steps removed from alleged members of gangs. He also said that the city’s gang database is deeply flawed and further enforcement actions using the database will only exacerbate systemic violence against Black and Brown Chicagoans.

    “Chicago has a long and troubled history of unjust arrest and imprisonment. Let’s not add another chapter to this story with unjust confiscation. There are proven violence prevention strategies that should be pursued instead of this ordinance,” Mitchell said.

    Mitchell’s statement was accompanied by the release of this letter outlining his full concerns with the ordinance. The letter was shared with City Council members this morning.

    The ACLU of Illinois said that the ordinance essentially gives the Chicago Corporation Counsel the power to take the property of an accused person even before he or she is convicted. Moreover, the ordinance shifts to the accused person the burden of proof to show that they are not involved in gang activity. Many of the people targeted will not be able to afford attorneys, and attorneys will not be provided free of charge.

    “Civil asset forfeiture is not the way to achieve safety in neighborhoods across the city. It already has proven to fail in that role. It ignores proven strategies that address the root causes of crime,” said Angela Inzano, policy and advocacy strategist at the ACLU of Illinois. The ACLU has posted on its website a summary of its concerns about the ordinance.

    The following individuals and organizations are on record opposing the proposed ordinance:  

• Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender
• ACLU of Illinois
• MAAFA Redemption Project
• Live Free Chicago/Live Free Illinois
• Chicago CRED
• Communities Partnering 4 Peace
• Illinois Justice Project (ILJP)
• Shriver Center on Poverty Law
• Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts
• Public Equity
• Pastor Autry Phillips, Hopewell M.B. Church
• The Chicago Bar Association
• Healing Hurt People
• John Howard Association
• Pastor Marshall Hatch, New Mt. Pilgrim MB Church
• READI Chicago
• Shriver Center on Poverty Law
• Chicago Council of Lawyers
• The People's Lobby
• Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
• Lucy Parsons Labs
• Equity and Transformation (EAT)
• Heartland Alliance
• Liberation Library
• Loevy & Loevy Chicago Jobs Council
• Erase the Database Coalition
• SoapBox Productions & Organizing
• The #LetUsBreathe Collective
• Chicago Torture Justice Center
• Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities (TASC)
• Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Network of Illinois
• Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois
• National Lawyers Guild of Chicago
• Rev Veronica Johnson, Rev Sarah Lusche, Pastors, Hyde Park Union Church
• Pastor Victoria C. Brady, Restoring Hope Ministries International,
• Rev. Dr. Beth Brown, Pastor, Lincoln Park Presbyterian Church
• One Aim/GPAC
• Apostolic Pentecostal Church of Morgan Park
• Amnesty International USA
• South Shore United Methodist Church
• Pastor Phil Jackson, Firehouse Community Arts Center
• Faith in Place Chicago DSA
• Chicago Community Bond Fund
• Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights 
• United Working Families

Originally released Jan. 13, 2022

Culture and Politics

2020: A Year of Social Panic,

Spiking Gun Sales, and 

a Pandemic That Still Rages 

 

By Steve Rensberry
Opinion / Analysis

_________________

    EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - 1/1/2021 - The year 2020 was one for the history books. Gun sales went through the roof, murder and violent shootings practically doubled in major cities across the country, political tensions and polarization was fiercer than ever, and the leader of the free world -- angry at losing an election -- has repeatedly tried to redefine reality, peddle election conspiracies, and downplay a pandemic that has claimed more than 330,000 American lives.

    

Firearms manufactured in the U.S. by type. Source: ATF

     

    The trends are worth documenting, and analyzing, though at least one writer on the subject urges patience given the uncertainty and complexity of the situation. Yes, murder and shootings were up significantly in Chicago, but they were also significantly up in most every other major city in the country. Crime analyst Jeff Asher, in fact, looked at 50 major U.S. cities this past year and concluded that murder was up on average by 35-36 percent relative to 2019, all but blowing away the previous year-to-year record change of 12.5 percent.

    Also, while people have been buying guns like it was bread at the supermarket, experts have noted that an estimated 40 percent of those purchases have been by first-time buyers, at least in Illinois, and most were handguns -- which I suppose is a bit more comforting than AK-47s or rocket launchers.

    One indication of just how record-shattering gun sales were in Illinois in 2020 comes from the Illinois State Police (ISP), who reported in early December that they were battling an enormous backlog of Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card applications.

    The demand has been outstripping the ISP's capacity for years, the ISP said, with the number of FOID card holders growing from 1.2 to 2.2 million in just the past decade. The number of concealed carry permit holders in the state grew from 90,301 in 2014 to 343,2099 in 2020, a three-fold increase.

  

Firearm registration per state. Source: ATF

 "Due to the lengthy budget impasses, the Firearms Services Fund (FSF) was 'swept' in 2015 and 2018 and no plan to maintain or expand staffing was developed during that period," the ISP stated in the notice. "The current administration has not swept the fund and, in 2019, new leadership over ISP FSB (Illinois State Police Firearm Services Bureau) initiated a hiring plan and metrics-based strategic plan focused on outcomes and accountability. This year, the ISP FSB was confronted with a massive work increase across all categories."

    From 2017 to 2020, FOID card applications increased in Illinois by 167 percent, and Firearm Transfer Inquiry Program (FTIP) requests increased by 45 percent from where it was in 2019, to 506,104.

    "ISP FSB processed an unprecedented 64,000+ FTIPs in March 2020 -- the largest number recorded for one month until that record was broken in June with 65,000+ FTIPs," the ISP stated. "More than 400,000 calls came into the FSB Call Center from May to November when a new automated phone system with metrics was activated."

    In 2019, ISP data showed there were 2,285,990 active FOID card holders in the state and 325,187 people with permits to carry a concealed weapon. Although submitting one's fingerprints can speed up the application process, especially for a concealed carry permit, it is not mandated. "Only 0.06% of FOID card holders were fingerprinted as part of the FOID/FCCL application process," the ISP states. 

    FOID card applications totaled 170,178 in 2014, 163,172 in 2015, 187,947 in 2016, 166,649 in 2017, and 256,353 in 2018. In 2019, they climbed slightly higher to roughly 262,000. However, from January 2020 to November 2020 the ISP received 445,945 applications. The number of Illinois residents with concealed carry licenses, meanwhile, has climbed to more than 343,300.

    What is fueling the historic rise? That question has been asked by multiple experts since at least mid-summer. In a Dec. 12, 2020 news story for the Peoria Journal Star, writers Ann Sweeney and Stacy St. Clair quote Illinois State Police Director Brendon Kelly as saying the increase is "undeniable," and describing it as a reflection of tensions seen across the country.

    Sweeney and St. Clair cite an initial spike in March as COVID-19 began to spread and Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued stay-at-home orders. "In that month alone, there were 64,000 background checks performed in anticipation of a firearm sale," they write. Another spike happened in June when racial protests began to spread, with more than 65,000 inquiries.

    Because the tracking of private sales is limited, the total number of guns sold during 2020 is likely to be higher than the 506,104 logged through the Firearm Transfer Inquiry Program, they said. It is also unclear exactly how many firearms are being sold to one individual following just one background check.

    To me, the surge in violent shootings is horrendously sad, and another indication that we simply have a long way to go in reducing crime in the country. Is it due to a lack of policing effectiveness? The result of police being less aggressive for fear of a backlash, or undertaking fewer patrols because too many officers are off sick with COVID-19? Some officials have speculated as much.

    The good news, if you can call it that, is that the current spike in violent crime follows several years of declining numbers, representing mostly a setback.

    As for the spike in gun purchases, it smacks me as both reactionary and fear-driven, yet sadly understandable given the spirit of the times. A lot of people don't feel safe and they don't trust the police, and sometimes even their neighbors. The downside is that experts fear it could seriously increase the risk of suicides, lead to more overall crime through firearm theft and misuse, and lead to more injuries or accidental deaths by first-time buyers, many of whom may have received less than rigorous training because of the pandemic.

    Meanwhile, here we are at the start of another year and COVID-19 infections continue to claim lives, despite the roll-out of promising vaccines. It needs to happen faster.

    What can be said about the pandemic this past year that hasn't already been said? Although it has been highly politicized in the U.S., the fact that it has spread the world over, leading at last count to 1.82 million deaths worldwide and 83.4 million total cases, should be enough for people to pull together and defeat a common enemy.

    As we head into 2021, we can only hope. 

 

Reference

The Complicated Truth About Chicago Crime

Illinois Sees Record Increase in Firearm Permit Requests

What's Behind a Sharp Rise in Murders Across the U.S.?

Report: Policing becoming inceasingly militarized

    NEW YORK – 6/24/2014 - After obtaining and analyzing thousands of documents from police departments around the country, oday the American Civil Liberties Union released the report War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing. The ACLU focused on more than 800 SWAT raids conducted by law enforcement agencies in 20 states and on the agencies’ acquisition of military weaponry, vehicles, and equipment.
   "We found that police overwhelmingly use SWAT raids not for extreme emergencies like hostage situations but to carry out such basic police work as serving warrants or searching for a small amount of drugs," said Kara Dansky, Senior Counsel with the ACLU’s Center for Justice. "Carried out by ten or more officers armed with assault rifles, flashbang grenades, and battering rams, these paramilitary raids disproportionately impacted people of color, sending the clear message that the families being raided are the enemy. This unnecessary violence causes property damage, injury, and death."
   The report documents multiple tragedies caused by police carrying out needless SWAT raids, including a 26-year-old mother shot with her child in her arms and a 19-month-old baby critically injured when a flashbang grenade landed in his crib.
   "Our police are trampling on our civil rights and turning communities of color into war zones," Dansky continued. "We all pay for it with our tax dollars. The Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice give police military weaponry and vehicles as well as grants for military equipment. The War on Drugs has failed, yet the federal government hasn’t stopped the flow of guns and money."
   The report calls for the federal government to rein in the incentives for police to militarize. The ACLU also asks that local, state, and federal governments track the use of SWAT and the guns, tanks, and other military equipment that end up in police hands.
   "Our findings reveal not only the dangers of militarized police, but also the difficulties in determining the extent and impact of those dangers. At every level – from the police to the state governments to the federal government – there is almost no record keeping about SWAT or the use of military weapons and vehicles by local law enforcement," Dansky noted.
   In addition, the report recommends that state legislatures and municipalities develop criteria for SWAT raids that limit their deployment to the kinds of emergencies for which they were intended, such as an active shooter situation.
   The report is available here: www.aclu.org/militarization
   Source: American Civil Liberties Union