Public Act 099-0666
 
HB1437 EnrolledLRB099 04138 JLK 24158 b

    AN ACT concerning State government.
 
    Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
 
    Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the
Criminal Diversion Racial Impact Data Collection Act.
 
    Section 5. Legislative intent. Racial and ethnic disparity
in the criminal justice system, or the over-representation of
certain minority groups compared to their representation in the
general population, has been well documented, along with the
harmful effects of such disproportionality. There is no single
cause of the racial and ethnic disparity evident at every stage
of the criminal justice system; suggested causes have included
differing patterns of criminal activity, law enforcement
activity, and discretionary decisions of criminal justice
practitioners, along with effects of legislative policies. In
order to make progress in reducing this harmful phenomenon,
information on the racial composition of offenders at each
stage of the criminal justice system must be systematically
gathered and analyzed to lay the foundation for determining the
impact of proposed remedies. Gaps of information at any stage
will hamper valid analysis at subsequent stages. At the
earliest stages of the criminal justice system, systematic
statewide information on arrested persons, including race and
ethnicity, is collected in the State Police Criminal History
Record Information System. However, under the Criminal
Identification Act, systematic statewide information on the
racial and ethnic composition of adults diverted from arrest by
law enforcement and diverted from prosecution by each county's
State's Attorney's office is not available. Therefore, it is
the intent of this legislation to provide a mechanism by which
statewide data on the race and ethnicity of offenders diverted
from the criminal justice system before the filing of a court
case can be provided by the criminal justice entity involved
for future racial disparity impact analyses of the criminal
justice system.
 
    Section 10. Definitions. As used in this Act:
    "Arrested but released without being charged" means the
taking into custody of a person by a law enforcement agency and
his or her subsequent release without a formal charge filed.
    "Authority" means the Illinois Criminal Justice
Information Authority.
    "Diversion from prosecution" means the placement of the
defendant into any specialized program by the State's
Attorney's office, after which formal charges are dismissed,
subject to successful completion of the program.
    "Law enforcement agency" means any agency of this State or
a political subdivision of this State that is vested by law
with the duty to maintain public order and to enforce criminal
laws.
    "Racial and ethnic information" means categories of
socially significant groupings by which individuals identify
themselves, based on physical characteristics and cultural
heritage, as categorized under subsection (b) of Section 4.5 of
the Criminal Identification Act.
 
    Section 15. Reporting; publication.
    (a) Under the reporting guidelines for law enforcement
agencies in Sections 2.1, 4.5, and 5 of the Criminal
Identification Act, the Authority shall determine and report
the number of persons arrested and released without being
charged, and report the racial and ethnic composition of those
persons.
    (b) Under the reporting guidelines for State's Attorneys in
Sections 2.1, 4.5, and 5 of the Criminal Identification Act,
the Authority shall determine and report the number of persons
for which formal charges were dismissed, and the race and
ethnicity of those persons.
    (c) Under the reporting guidelines for circuit court clerks
in Sections 2.1, 4.5, and 5 of the Criminal Identification Act,
the Authority shall determine and report the number of persons
admitted to a diversion from prosecution program, and the
racial and ethnic composition of those persons, separated by
each type of diversion program.
    (d) The Authority shall publish the information received
and an assessment of the quality of the information received,
aggregated to the county level in the case of law enforcement
reports, on its publicly available website for the previous
calendar year, as affirmed by each reporting agency at the time
of its report submission.
    (e) The Authority, Department of State Police,
Administrative Office of Illinois Courts, and Illinois State's
Attorneys Association may collaborate on any necessary
training concerning the provisions of this Act.
 
    Section 20. Repeal. This Act is repealed on December 31,
2020.
 
    Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect January
1, 2017.