SE Illinois News

State Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) recently weighed in on proposed legislation that would make violence against police officers a hate crime in the state of Illinois.

Sponsored by State Rep. Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines), The Police Hate Crime Bill would make violence against police a hate crime in the state of Illinois, according to the Washington News Post. Another bill, The Police Protection Act would make “officer targeting” a Class 3 felony and increase penalties for such acts.

"It makes sense with the culture of what we’re seeing. We need to be doing everything we can to protect our officers," Bailey said in support of the proposed legislation in an interview with SE Illinois News. "There is no reason in the world while society should be allowing the violence and attacks perpetuated against our officers. I’m almost in favor of anything to help."

ACLU Illinois has come out against the bill and has said that it won't solve the problem they are trying to address because studies show that increasing penalties for a crime doesn't reduce the crime.

"If we're telling the public that we're going to make them safer, and protect police officers and reduce crime, then we're really barking up the wrong tree if we're proposing penalty enhancements as a way to do that," Benjamin Ruddell ACLU-Illinois director of criminal justice policy said, according to ABC 7 News.

Bailey told SE Illinois that he disagreed with the ACLU study and supported increasing punishments for crimes against law enforcement officers.

"I think it's a bogus study. What's happening is we're throwing these criminals behind bars and giving them more freedom, making life behind bars more plush for them than many of our law-abiding citizens have it," Bailey told SE Illinois. "We need to make sure the punishment fits the crime. We need to make it where people don’t want to be in jail."

Bailey went on to add that state funding should be increased for law enforcement issues and to keep officers safe.

"We need reprioritize our funding. The governor has been tossing money around like candy for everything but law enforcement," Bailey said. "We need to be addressing that, more money for funding training, etc. We need to curb all these anti-law enforcement bills that were approved this last calendar year."

According to FBI statistics, more than 60,000 law enforcement officers were injured while on duty last year, ABC 7 News reported.