Poorly Written Reform Bill Puts Criminals' Interests First: Maton

LEMONT, IL — Lemont Police Chief Marc Maton spoke out against the sweeping police reform bill signed Monday by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, calling for the language of the bill to be clear and unambiguous. The legislation, known as HB 3653, includes a sweeping package of criminal law and police accountability reforms and makes Illinois the first state in the nation to abolish cash bail for pretrial detention.

The bill also includes changes to pretrial detention, sentencing laws, police licensing, bodycam mandates and changes to training requirements. The bill was signed over the objections of law enforcement groups, including a coalition of police unions and law enforcement associations which said residents would be less safe if the bill is signed into law and urged the governor to veto it.

Maton is the chief of police for Lemont and also chairs the legislative committee for the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police. He was named the 2020 Chief of the Year by the organization.

His biggest concern with the bill is the unclear language, stating that there is "poorly written, ambiguous, counter-intuitive and conflicting language in many segments of this legislation."

"We're not opposed to a lot of these policing concepts," he told Patch.

Maton said the bill signed by Pritzker puts "the interests of criminals over the safety of the communities we serve, saying of state lawmakers, "Instead of working with law enforcement and victims’ groups and coming up with a framework to enhance police professionalism, [proponents of the bill] instead once again have chosen to demonize hard-working police officers who spend each shift protecting the communities we all live in. The cost of this bill will be borne, once again, by municipal government."

Maton also said that the bill was passed before law enforcement officials had a chance to read it or share their feedback, saying, "This 747-page bill was introduced at 3 o’clock in the morning, in a non-transparent fashion."

Maton added, "Police chiefs are not opposed to positive police reform measures or police modernization. We support police accountability, certification measures, robust training, and the use of body worn cameras...We support getting rid of bad cops, but there needs to be a system of due process."

Maton also said police departments will need help paying for the new regulations included in the reform bill, "and [we] need to make compliance with the body camera law much less complicated, like it is in all of the other parts of the country."

Maton said in other states body cameras are treated as another piece of evidence, similar to in-car video. The language of the bill is confusing on when body cameras are turned-on, when they're turned-off, and when it's at the discretion of the officer, Maton said.

He also said police chiefs do not want use of force to be done improperly, "but we need the language governing force to be lawful and unambiguous."

Maton said he has had conversations with area legislators and county officials, and a lot of the meetings are spent debating what the language even means.

"That should be the catalyst for us to clean it all up," Maton said.

"The fact that we spent so much time on those calls debating what the language in the bill says illustrates why this needs to be fixed," he said. "We need them to commit to the process of fixing this language, and for them to engage with law enforcement, states attorneys and victims’ groups to arrive at properly written language."