HR0301 97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0301 LRB097 11531 AJO 54402 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, Municipalities throughout Illinois contain neighborhoods identified as high-crime areas where law-abiding citizens fear for their safety and legitimate businesses abandon their endeavors; and

WHEREAS, State and federal resources must be made available to boost local efforts to protect the people of this great State; and

WHEREAS, Gang violence, random shootings, and blatant criminal activity have harmed neighborhoods and scarred families by death, permanent injury, and intimidation; and

WHEREAS, Nationwide attention focused on a high-crime area in Illinois when videos taken outside Chicago's Fenger High School in 2009 captured the tragic beating death of Derrion Albert, an innocent victim of gang violence; and

WHEREAS, The pockets of deadly crime are often concentrated as illustrated by a Chicago Police Department analysis that found that in 2009 all shootings and homicides took place in areas of the City which, when taken together, constitute only 8.5% of the geographic area of Chicago; and

WHEREAS, In 2010, even though the overall number of homicides in Chicago was at a 45-year low, nearly 700 children were shot, an average of almost 2 a day, and 66 of those young people died; the majority of those deaths was gang-related; and

WHEREAS, Criminal gang activity is not confined to only one city or only to urban areas as amply illustrated by news reports within the last year from many locales around Illinois; and

WHEREAS, According to the latest intelligence from a top federal law enforcement agency in Chicago, there are at least 100,000 gang members distributed among 75 to 100 street gangs in Chicago and the suburbs; unfortunately, this means that this street gang membership is at least twice as big as Chicago and suburban police departments combined; and

WHEREAS, If the Chicago Police Department had the benefit of additional law enforcement personnel at its disposal through a coordinated effort with the Illinois State Police and the Cook County Sheriff's Office, the Department could effectively enforce the applicable curfew and obtain immediate and long-term results in high-crime areas; similarly, State-county-municipal cooperation in other cities could help transform high-crime neighborhoods; and

WHEREAS, While we realize that the federal budget problems may diminish the federal resources available to help defray the cost of intensive law enforcement efforts, including the technology necessary for the prevention and solution of murders and other violent crimes, we nonetheless urge Congress to appropriate funds for grants for this purpose; we also urge the Department of Homeland Security and other key federal agencies to channel or repurpose existing federal resources to help Illinois undertake this joint effort to attack high-crime areas; certainly, effective use of law enforcement funds in the present may allow savings in the judicial and correctional systems in the future; and

WHEREAS, State agencies, such as the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, should recognize the role which the agencies could play to combat some of the underlying causes of unemployment and crime and should foster helpful programs that would encourage small business job creation and local job training activities; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-SEVENTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we urge the Governor, each mayor of a municipality with a high-crime area, and the sheriff of the county in which that municipality is located to commit to the coordination of the municipal police force, the Department of State Police, and the sheriff's office to help to bring an end to rampant criminal activity in that municipality's high-crime area; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we recommend that the Governor and the mayors of municipalities with high-crime areas urge Congress to recognize the need for this type of joint effort and to support grants for states, such as Illinois, which are struggling with large budget deficits and are also facing serious problems in high-crime areas; and be it further

RESOLVED, That suitable copies of this resolution be presented to the Governor, each sheriff, and the mayor of each municipality with a population of 50,000 or more, and to each member of the Illinois congressional delegation.