Resolve budget standoff to save our communities
As we closed our third month without a state budget, I recently joined other suburban law enforcement leaders to meet with Illinois Department of Human Services Secretary James Dimas. Our aim was to let Secretary Dimas know that we see human services programs as critical to cutting crime and ensuring communities are free from violence.
IDHS programs have been hit particularly hard by the current state budget impasse. Our state’s social service and nonprofit infrastructure has been rocked at its very foundation by lack of adequate funding. Continuing to ask these organizations to carry on without a state budget is asking for the impossible.
Law enforcement leaders are particularly concerned with maintaining IDHS-funded programs such as:
Healthy Families and Parents Too Soon, which can prevent child abuse and neglect by providing coaching for at-risk parents of infants and toddlers
Teen REACH, the only statefunded after-school program based on a specific youth development model with excellent academic and behavioral outcomes.
The Child Care Assistance Program, which helps keep adults employed and kids in safe environments— two factors that are essential to public safety.
Redeploy Illinois, which dramatically cuts repeat arrests among troubled youth who have already headed down the wrong path.
Unfortunately, far too many child care centers, home visiting programs, and after-school programs have been forced to close their doors, lay off staff, and cease services to our state’s most vulnerable children. Without these efforts, we will be effectively sending police officers out on the streets to fight crime with one hand tied behind their backs.
That’s why police chiefs, sheriffs and state’s attorneys from across the state are committed to partnering with the Illinois Department of Human Services to ensure these key IDHS programs stay in place. I strongly urge our state leaders to resolve this standoff and get back to the work of helping law enforcement make Illinois a safe place to grow up. Thomas Weitzel, Riverside Police Chief and Board Member Fight
Crime Invest in Kids, Illinois
Grade school memory
I wonder if anyone else has this memory. The recent shootings at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, in which the gunman asked students what religion they were and shot them if they answered Christian, brought back a chilling episode of my Catholic grade school training in the early 1960s. We were taught that it was a mortal sin to deny your faith. The nun in my class said that even if someone pointed a gun at you and threatened to kill you, you must answer truthfully. (She actually used that example.)
Pretty heavy lesson for a 12-year-old. Glad I never had to test it.
Mike Calendar, Belmont Heights
Apology is owed
How dare Chicago aldermen blame the police superintendent and the entire Police Department for all the shootings in Chicago but especially the South Side. Every single alderman who attacked Garry McCarthy owes him an apology.
In case they haven’t figured it out, the shooters have no respect for anyone, especially our police officers. You should be blaming parents for what is happening in your neighborhoods. How are these children getting these guns? Where are the parents of these shooters?
How many more innocent children need to be killed before aldermen realize the problem is that these young children have no right to have guns? The problem is not going to be resolved until you all work together as a team and act like adults. Shame on you all.
Diane Rack, Hoffman Estates