CHICAGO — Facing mounting criticism from Republicans over a rise in violent crime, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has proposed spending $20 million on a long-neglected witness protection program for people whose lives are put in danger by helping law enforcement.
The program was created under a nearly decade-old state law that requires law enforcement to pay for moving and relocation expenses for witnesses and victims who fear retaliation for testifying against those accused of violent crimes.
But the program has not been funded under Pritzker or his predecessors. While law enforcement authorities say retaliation against witnesses is rare, and relocation is not often necessary, the move to fund the state program has backing from members of both parties.
“The fact that we did not fund the program was a dangerous miscalculation on our part as budget people in the state of Illinois because there are so many people in Illinois, especially Chicago, that are willing to help solve these crimes but they are afraid because there’s no protection for them,” said state Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat.
The program was established under a 2013 law known as the Gang Crimes Witness Protection Act. Ford worked on the legislation with state Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, now the House speaker. The measure requires the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority to administer the program.
In his budget address last month at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Pritzker acknowledged that “disappointingly, the program was never funded.”
Pritzker’s $20 million proposal for the program comes as he says the state is on its best fiscal footing in years, projecting a $1.7 billion surplus ahead of his proposed budget for fiscal year 2023.
In response to several questions about the program from the Tribune, a Pritzker spokeswoman said “revenue outperformance and prudent fiscal management” has allowed the state to fund the program and other services “instead of paying interest on debt.”
A spokeswoman with the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority said the office was still working out details with the Illinois attorney general’s office and various state’s attorneys on how the money would be spent, should Pritzker’s approval be part of the final budget approved by legislators.
Pritzker is making the proposal as he seeks reelection and tries to fend off Republican candidates who’ve sought to paint him as being weak on crime.
The governor has been criticized by the GOP for signing sweeping criminal justice reform legislation that, among other things, will end cash bail next year. While Democrats have said the legislation’s aim was to address inequities in the criminal justice system, Republicans have accused the governor and the Democratic-controlled legislature of supporting policies that embolden criminals and undermine law enforcement.
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs, one of Pritzker’s most vocal critics and a former Cook County prosecutor, said he supports the allocation of $20 million for a witness protection program. But he said Pritzker’s funding proposal shows the governor is “deathly afraid of the politics” of the criminal justice reform package “and the public attitudes toward criminal justice.”
“He knows that this is a very, very serious issue on all Illinoisans. It’ll be a major campaign issue,” said Durkin. “So, if he thinks that this $20 million is going to erase the problems of what he and his legislative cohorts have done, I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Ford said allocating money to protect witnesses and victims could show voters that the Democratic Party cares about putting “actual killers” in jail.
“This is a perfect example of Democrats being tough on crime. You can’t ask for a better scenario,” he said. “You can’t ask for a better program to show that we want to catch the actual criminals. That’s smart and tough on crime. We don’t want to just throw everyone in jail on a whimsical warrant.”
The witness protection funding law took effect during Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration. The law calls for the state to provide funds to county prosecutors to cover temporary living costs, moving expenses, rent, security deposits and other relocation funds for witnesses or victims of violent crimes that are being prosecuted in court.
Law enforcement has long bemoaned the reluctance of many crime witnesses to cooperate for fear of retaliation. The so called no-snitching mindset has been reinforced through social media and song lyrics by underground rappers demonizing those who dare talk to the police.
There is ample reason for such fears. In one high-profile example from September 2019, 18-year-old Treja Kelley was shot and killed just months after testifying in the murder trial for a man accused of killing her teenage cousin in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood.
After she helped win a guilty verdict, a $5,000 bounty was placed on her head, according to Cook County prosecutors. A man was charged in her killing and is awaiting trial.
However, law enforcement authorities say retaliation is rare, and so is the need for witnesses or victims to be relocated.
On the federal level, for example, the witness security program has been active since the early 1970s and has protected roughly 19,000 people, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. While not insignificant, that’s only a fraction of the total number of witnesses to or victims of federal criminal cases nationwide over the last half a century, according to federal authorities.
Under the federal program, victims and witnesses, as well as their family members, typically get new identities with “authentic documentation,” the Marshals Service website says, and they’re offered basic living expenses, medical care, job training and help seeking employment. The marshals also provide 24-hour protection to witnesses through the adjudication processes of their cases.
Cook County provides relocation services for victims or witnesses, though those services are limited. The Cook County state’s attorney’s office said that during roughly the first 10 months of 2021, prosecutors relocated, or were in the process of relocating, individuals or family members connected to about three dozen cases out of the thousands of cases the office handled that year.
In October, Lois Smith, then-director of the state’s attorney’s office’s victim witness assistance unit, said that money is limited for these services and that arranging to move at-risk victims or witnesses is not easy.
“What we’ve come to learn is people don’t want to leave their community, their families, their friends, the institutions that are important to them,” she told the Tribune.
There’s no comprehensive research that measures the effectiveness of witness protection, especially as it relates to rates of crime and how often crimes are solved. But proponents of the state funding are hopeful that it could help improve clearance rates for homicides and shootings, which have dropped in Chicago in recent years.
The Rev. Ira Acree, pastor of Greater St. John Bible Church in Chicago’s Austin community, has advocated publicly for more witness protection funding. He believes such a program can help improve the fractured relationship between the police and communities.
“The truth of the matter is, it’s not about breaking the code of silence. Our challenge today is to break a culture of fear,” said Acree. “People are afraid. And these are some dangerous hardcore criminals out here and shooting grandmothers and 7-year-old kids.”
State Sen. John Connor, a Lockport Democrat, said that as a Will County prosecutor in the 2000s he prosecuted a murder case in which his star witness was shot 10 times after it apparently became known that the person had been subpoenaed to testify at trial.
The witness survived, and Connor said his office and the Joliet Police Department, which investigated the slaying, pulled together money seized from other crimes to relocate this witness away from danger, paying for his rent and other expenses.
Connor estimated that this cost more than $100,000 over a period of roughly 18 months, at the end of which time he was able to secure a conviction.
Even if such services are only used once in a while, “what if the individual who is convicted is also a suspect in other homicides, and then suddenly now they’re in custody and nobody else is in danger?” Connor asked.
“There’s an opportunity to really break some cycles by using this because you’ve got to understand, if somebody grows up in a neighborhood where every person who testifies dies,” Connor said, “then you’re really not getting a whole lot of incentive to cooperate with the police.”
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(Chicago Tribune reporter Stephanie Casanova contributed from Chicago.)
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