January 21, 2022: Public Comments to Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee in Opposition to the “Victims Justice Ordinance” (VJO)
On Friday, January 21, 2022, Program Manager & Policy Analyst for Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers, Hanna Sharif-Kazemi, provided comments to the Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee in opposition of Mayor Lightfoot’s proposed “Victims Justice Ordinance” (VJO).
The VJO would allow the City of Chicago to file lawsuits in civil court against people they allege to be “gang members” in order to take their cash and property — including cellphones, cars, jewelry, and anything else deemed valuable — because, according to the Mayor, taking people’s resources allows the City to “go after the profit motive…to reduce the incentive for the gangs.” Civil asset forfeiture bypasses the checks and balances of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office by going directly to civil courts; the Mayor’s proposal is an unconstitutional and disproven strategy reminiscent of failed policies of the past.
The ordinance, which is based on the 1992 Illinois Streetgang Terrorism Omnibus Prevention Act, was introduced by Mayor Lightfoot in September of 2021. Since then, numerous lawyers, activists, and community and legal organizations have spoken out about the harms of civil asset forfeiture. Chicago Appleseed and the Council joined a coalition of over 40 other organizations, including the ACLU of Illinois and the Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender, to oppose the VJO; dozens of local civil rights lawyers wrote a letter to the City explaining that the “plan is likely to result in due process violations and complaints of discrimination, because the City’s past efforts at identifying gang members almost exclusively targeted Black and Latino people.”
Hanna’s testimony is below and the video of the full Committee meeting can be found here.
Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts and the Chicago Council of Lawyers oppose Mayor Lightfoot’s “Victims Justice Ordinance” to use civil asset forfeiture powers in response to gun violence in Chicago. Simply put, the Ordinance is a misguided and regressive attempt to quell rising homicide rates in the City and will undoubtedly lead to a misapplication of resources, due process concerns, and the criminalization of individuals who are already suffering from violence in their communities.
It has been long documented that civil asset forfeiture violates people’s civil liberties and due process rights while also disproportionately affecting Black, brown, and poor people and families. What the mayor is proposing is not a new “tool” to fight violence. Rather, it is a repeat of failed policies that have been tried over and over in our city’s history with no success. Since 2015, Lucy Parsons Labs has investigated the use of civil asset forfeiture and found that the Chicago Police Department took millions of dollars from citizens every year–with the vast majority of forfeitures occurring in the communities already most harmed by gun violence-the city’s South and West Sides. But CPD isn’t taking millions of dollars from “kingpins,” – more often than not, this money comes from innocent family members of accused people.
We know that when the City has attempted to target people they label “gang members,” its efforts have been unsuccessful, overly broad, and harmful. Thousands of people are incorrectly listed as currently or formerly affiliated people in the infamous and problematic gang database. And yet, the Ordinance still does not provide guidance on how the City will prevent incorrectly-identified people, inactive and formerly-affiliated, and other innocent people from improper seizures.
These lack of protections are heightened by the fact that the people most affected by civil asset forfeiture are people who already have few assets to begin with and cannot access lawyers, since they have no right to free representation in civil cases. The “Victims Justice Ordinance” will take money and resources from families and communities who desperately need every penny. And while the ordinance claims that 50% of funds will go to “victims and witnesses” of crime, in actuality, it will extract money from the same people that it claims to be giving back to.
There is no doubt that gun violence is causing immense harm and trauma for the most vulnerable people in our city and requires immediate action in response. Instead of further destabilizing communities, the City should correct the impact years of community divestment has had on the rates of violence in our city. Extracting money from already unfunded communities is the opposite of what these communities have been calling for, and will only contribute to the structural factors that generate violence.
The Victims Justice Ordinance is a step backward in our city’s attempt to interrupt violence and promote real community safety. Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers urge City Council Members to oppose. Thank you.
Hanna Sharif-Kazemi (January 21, 2022)