Illinois mandates body cameras for police, but has hardly any punishment for departments that don’t follow it

Illinois (KWQC) - With fewer than 80 days until all law enforcement are mandated to wear body cameras, Illinois doesn‘t know is and isn’t following the mandate.

In 2021, lawmakers passed the SAFE-T Act, a sweeping criminal justice reform that ended cash bail, changed police training policies and placed body camera mandates for all law enforcement. Some communities are already under the mandate based on their size, but the final mandate for small cities/counties and all state agencies is just a couple months away (January 1, 2025).

Enforcing the mandate could prove to be a challenge however. The Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board (ILETSB) puts together a report on agencies who submit body camera reports. The most recent report in 2023 lists 180 agencies (a record for ILETSB) along with nine communities that either don’t have body cameras or are still working to get them. The issue TV6 Investigates found is that Illinois has 846 law enforcement agencies according to the 2018 Census of Law Enforcement Agencies. TV6 Investigates asked ILETSB if they had another resource that showed who did and didn‘t have body cameras, and the agency‘s public service administrator John Keigher said, “We don‘t know who does and doesn’t have body cameras.”

Keigher went on to explain that policies changed in the last year to limit that data, “Between 2016 and 2022, towns that used body cameras were required to report their use to ILETSB for publication in an annual report,” Keigher said. “In 2023, this was amended to only apply to towns that received grants.”

Illinois gives out grants to departments that are working to be in compliance with the state’s mandate. Previous body camera reports done by ILETSB have fewer respondents than 2023.

• 2023 - 180
• 2022 - 117
• 2021 - 106

TV6 Investigates filed a public records request with ILETSB for departments that got grant funding to purchase body cameras, but we were referred back to the 2023 report.

With no comprehensive list of departments with and without body cameras, TV6 Investigates wanted to know what would happen to departments who violated the mandate. The answer we found was that the punishments are next to nothing.

The state law outlining deadlines and policies for body cameras only lists grant funding to buy body cameras as the sole incentive for departments to comply.

“A law enforcement agency’s compliance with the requirements under this Section shall receive preference by the Illinois Law Enforcement Standards Board in awarding grant funding under the Law Enforcement Camera Grant Act.”

State Representative Tony McCombie thinks body cameras are a great tool for law enforcement to have, but believes the structure of enforcing the mandate has been flawed from the beginning.

“It’s a big agency and they have a lot to do and it’s another mandate on an agency and that’s also a problem,” McCombie said. “So when legislation comes forward, who’s going to do the work? This is the result of that.”

State Senator Mike Halpin disagrees with the punishments being too lax. He believes giving every agency time to get body cameras in place is the better approach instead of levying harsh penalties out of the gate.

“We wanted to have a hard deadline, but the goal was not to severely punish municipalities if they’re not able to comply by that deadline,” Halpin said.

Halpin went on to add that lawmakers can go back and vote on stiffer penalties if some agencies decide not to comply with the mandate.

TV6 Investigates reached out to Governor JB Pritzker about the lack of punishment, but he declined comment.