Plan to limit the scope of the regulations of the “criminal living space”

Springfield-a Senate Committee pushed a measure on Wednesday with which the circumstances under which tenants can be sold due to local “criminal residential regulations”.

The measure was supported by apartment users who argued that the criminal ordinances in cases in which the actual residents of the houses in question were questioned, have committed minor crimes or no crimes at all. However, the law enforcement and municipal groups countered that the limitation of the local authority to enforce criminal or disturbing regulations would take away guidelines that can be used to revive the neighborhoods.

The Senate's executive committee approved the draft law of the Senate 2264 on Wednesday, which, after a recently carried out investigation by the Illinois Answer Project and the New York Times, defines against criminal housing guidelines. It found that there were more than 2,000 cases in 25 cities in Illinois in which criminal housing regulations were enforced from 2019 to 2024, with about 500 of the cases involved in evacuations.

The investigation showed that there was only a third of these 2,000 violations of serious crimes such as drug accusations or convictions of crimes. The other approximately 1,300 violations were due to offenses or criminal offenses, “many of which were never persecuted by the public prosecutor,” said reporting.

In the communities in Illinois, criminal housing regulations began in the early nineties to remove violent criminals, drug dealers and disruptive tenants who often disturb their neighbors on rental objects. While the local regulations were used to achieve these goals, supporters are sometimes abused to apply for people who are not even accused of crimes, let alone condemned them.

In recent years, many cities have enforced the laws so aggressively that practically all contact tenants with the law enforcement authorities were used as the reason to raise violations of tenants, according to the news report. This includes the evacuation of tenants who called the police to ask for help, which caused the lawyers of the housing to urge themselves to press the new invoice.

In 2015, the legislature in Illinois passed a law that prohibits the regulations to deepen victims of domestic violence. At that time, some cities counted calls to the police of victims of domestic violence as annoying calls, which led to the victims' evacuation, the Chicago Tribune reported.

If SB 2264 is put into force, the municipalities would combine the punishment of tenants to appoint the police to apply for the help of law enforcement officers. It would also prohibit annoyance and criminal regulations to be applied to tenants who are not accused of crimes themselves, and prevent the regulations from being applied to tenants based on who they are related to, unless the association itself is a crime.

Every community that would have to enforce criminal housing guidelines would have to hire a criminal housing coordinator who would take over cases in which law enforcement informs a landlord that a tenant should be sold. The coordinator would check cases and decide whether the tenant's action justifies the evacuation.

The tenants would have the right to question the enforcement measures in front of the Circuit Court, and the municipalities would have to be a hearing process for those who deal with enforcement measures.

The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police Executive Director Kenny Winslow, who previously worked as a police chief of Springfield, described the criminal residential laws of the city as the “common crime reduction tool”. His organization rejected the measure, which only passed with democratic support.

“If it is used correctly, it can be a revitalization tool for a neighborhood,” he said.

Michael Banske, director of the Illinois Crime Free Association, controversial claims that the regulations are overdoor.

“We do not displace families for situations for domestic violence so that excessive demands for the police come there,” he said in the committee. “The burden is completely separated. Often in a municipality, both are treated by the same officer or the same department, but they are actually separated.”

The measure still requires the approval of the entire house and the Senate before going to the governor.

Capitol News Illinois is a non -profit, impartial intelligence service that distributes the reporting on the state government to hundreds of news senders nationwide. It is mainly financed by the Illinois Press Foundation and Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article was published for the first time on Capitol News Illinois and is released here under a creative commonsa attrution noderivative 4.0 International License.