Daily Herald opinion: Law inspired by suburban woman aims to improve sexual assault training for law enforcement
Heading to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk is a bill worthy of his signature and inspiring in its journey.
Dubbed “Anna’s Law,” the bill passed both the Illinois House and Senate unanimously. The governor’s approval would make it law.
The bill expands upon training programs law enforcement officials must undergo. Currently, as Capitol News Illinois pointed out in an article earlier this week, officer training includes education on “cultural perception and common myths of sexual assault and sexual abuse.”
Anna’s Law goes further, emphasizing that programs and procedures be geared to “minimize traumatization of the victim.”
Training must include how officers should respond to conflicts of interest, including when an investigator knows the accused. And the training would be repeated every three years.
Both are important additions.
The law is named for a McHenry County woman who turned her own experience into action.
In 2021, Anna Williams reported that she was sexually assaulted. At the hospital, she was questioned by a police officer from a department that has not been publicly identified. When Williams named her attacker, she said the officer came back with an insensitive — and wholly inappropriate — response: “Oh, I know him,” the officer told Williams. “He’s a great guy.”
At that point, the case should have been turned over to someone who did not have an already set opinion of the accused. In fact, Williams repeatedly — but unsuccessfully — requested that a different officer be assigned to her case. And when prosecutors decided not to press charges against the man she accused, she filed a Freedom of Information Act request that revealed the officer claimed she said the sex was consensual — although she insists she did not.
Williams could have left it there. Instead, she opted for action.
She drafted a potential bill pushing for change and put together a list of state laws addressing sexual assault that “didn’t sit right” with her. She brought the information to a town-hall meeting hosted by former State Sen. Ann Gillespie of Arlington Heights.
Her bill was sponsored in the House by Kankakee Republican Rep. Jackie Haas and in the Senate by Libertyville Democrat Sen. Mary Edly-Allen.
In a press release hailing the passage of Anna’s Law, Edly-Allen said the bill’s intent was to address how law enforcement officers handle sexual assault survivors.
“While we have come a long way, there is still much work to be done to address this issue,” she said. “And when we know better, we do better.”
Time and again we have seen legislative change emerge from trauma or tragedy.
Scott’s Law, which requires drivers to move over for stopped emergency vehicles, honors a firefighter killed by a drunken driver at a crash site. Molly’s Law extends the statue of limitations for a victim’s family to file a wrongful-death lawsuit when the act is intentional and violent. And Karina’s law, inspired by the death of a Chicago woman, clarifies that guns must be temporarily removed from the homes of those who have an order of protection against them.
In pursuing change, Anna Williams fought to make things better for other women reporting an assault.
“Personally, for myself, it’s helped me to find closure in everything,” Williams told CNI of bill’s passage. “It’s let me feel kind of like I still have a voice, I still have power and I can still use that to help people.”
And she has.