(The Center Square) – An Illinois attorney general candidate launched a new initiative to reform the SAFE-T Act on Tuesday.
The law enacted a number of criminal justice reforms across Illinois in 2021, and brought about the elimination of cash bail.
Republican Illinois Attorney General candidate Bob Fioretti announced the creation of a new Illinois Public Safety & Accountability Commission, led by retired Riverside Police Chief Thomas Weitzel.
One issue Fioretti sees with current law is how it handles electronic monitored release of inmates, which has been widely expanded since the 2023 law eliminating cash bail statewide.
He said the system is not working properly, and it was designed to allow low-level offenders to remain at home, instead of using taxpayer funds to keep them incarcerated full time.
“Electronic monitoring was never intended to let the violent criminals go home, enjoy home cooking, roam the streets for two days a week looking for new victims and their and their victims and families suffer,” Fioretti said.
Weitzel further said the legislative changes the group is looking to suggest are grounded in common sense and would be crafted based on input from stakeholders.
“We’re reaching out to Republicans, Democrats, independents. You’re going to see police leaders, you’re going to see legislative leaders invited,” Weitzel said. “You’re going to see court personnel who it actually affects, the practitioners, and we’re going to ask them for advice on what we could do to improve the SAFE-T act.”
Though they created the commission to suggest reforms to the law, both men said the best solution would be to scrap it all together, but a repeal is not realistic in today’s political climate.
Fioretti said that if state Democrats don’t change course soon, their policies will further bolster an uptick in crime across the state.
“Unless leaders of the Illinois Democratic Party dramatically reverse their current philosophy of ‘the criminals are the good guys, the police are the bad guys, and the victims don’t matter,’ then all they are doing is rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.”
Weitzel said their goal is driven by how Illinoisans feel about crime.
“I think the citizens across Illinois have already expressed – even if you don’t agree with my position or Bob’s position – you want change for public safety,” Weitzel said.
According to a February report from the Illinois Policy Institute, the violent crime rate in Chicago reached a decade-low in 2025, and total arrest rates rose from 13.8% to 15.8% year over year.
Fioretti is running n the November general election against Democrat incumbent Kwame Raoul.
Raoul defended the SAFE-T Act and the elimination of cash bail in 2023, when it was challenged on constitutional grounds in the Illinois Supreme Court.
Alongside the launch, Fioretti said they would soon be travelling around the state to hold town hall meetings on the SAFE-T Act and other policies he is campaigning on.
