Crime & Law
Bill Would Force Illinois Police Departments to Ban Officers From Having Sex With Prostitution Investigation Subjects
The Illinois House is pictured during its lame duck session that ran from Jan. 4-7, 2025, in Springfield. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)
by Jade Aubrey, Bridgette Fox and UIS Public Affairs Reporting (PAR), Capitol News Illinois
Police departments across Illinois may soon be required to start working on policies that prohibit their officers from having sex with any person they are investigating for prostitution.
Under a measure that cleared the General Assembly this week, departments would have until July 1 to put the new rule in place. It still needs a signature from Gov. J.B. Pritzker to become law.
House Bill 4410 passed Tuesday with a vote of 73-38 after clearing the Senate 43-10.
The bill also changes existing law’s reference of “juvenile prostitution” to “commercial sexual exploitation of a child.”
On top of that change, the term “juvenile prostitute” in existing law will be replaced with “sexually exploited child,” and the word “prostitute” in reference to adults will be replaced with “person engaged in the sex trade.”
State law enforcement agencies must also seal their records about a person’s Class 4 felony conviction for prostitution by Jan. 1, 2028, if the person’s charge is eligible.
For example, a person’s charge might be eligible if they were a victim of human trafficking, along with other circumstances laid out in the bill.
The measure was one of 24 that cleared the legislature during its four-day lame duck session this week before a new General Assembly was inaugurated Wednesday.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
