Every night on the news we see stories of murders, carjackings, shootings and other acts of violence. Law enforcement officers don’t get the support they need from state government, and law-abiding citizens have to navigate endless bureaucracy just to get paperwork approved.
Illinois needs to improve its method of protecting public safety.
We need to do a better job of recruiting and training our law enforcement officers for the many challenges they face in their difficult jobs. We need to streamline the bureaucracy which law-abiding citizens must deal with when they try to obtain or renew a FOID card. We also need to do a better job of collecting information about bail reform so that neighborhoods are kept safe from violent criminals.
“We need to take steps to protect the public, while respecting the rights of all Illinoisans,” said Rep. Tom Bennett who is sponsoring bills to improve law enforcement recruiting and training, and bills to ease the backlog of FOID card paperwork. “We need to reimagine Illinois’ public safety policies and do much more to keep Illinois safe.”
The House Republican plan for improving public safety throughout the state has four key aspects. The first involves ensuring that the training process for law enforcement officers is not tainted by corruption like the contract with the Illinois Law Enforcement Training Standards Board which was recently revoked after it was learned that it was connected to a lobbyist tied up in the ComEd bribery scandal. Second, we must implement a program to recruit and retain the best and brightest law enforcement officers we can find for these crucial jobs.
The third part of the plan calls for reforms to the state’s FOID card system to prevent law-abiding citizens from finding themselves suddenly in violation of the law just because a state agency is taking an unreasonable amount of time to process their paperwork. The fourth plank of the proposal calls for better data collection for a review of Illinois’ bail system so that we do not run the risk of releasing violent criminals back out into the community after they are arrested.
Read the full plan at ReimagineIllinois.com