Deputy Chief Dan Jungels of the Will County Sheriff’s Office described how the state Safety Act has changed local law enforcement workload and detention patterns while answering committee questions.

“I can tell you, as far as the safety act goes, … we only we work law enforcement's been evolving for decades,” Jungels said, adding that the overall crime rate for the same reporting period this year is down “about 10%.” He told the committee crimes against persons were down about 9.85% and crimes against property down about 9.33%; Jungels said crimes categorized as “crimes against society” were up, driven largely by increased arrests for drug and weapons offenses and a marked rise in child-abuse investigations.

Jungels said the department’s jail population has fallen from roughly 800 to about 475 residents, a change he attributed to the Safety Act’s reduced detention for lower-level offenses. He said warrants still issue and that a judge will issue a warrant when someone fails to appear in court.

He said the largest operational burden has been handling body-camera footage requests under the Freedom of Information Act and preparing redactions. “The amount of FOIA requests, and the amount of work that we do on a daily basis to redact those videos … is a pretty monumental task,” Jungels said, noting redaction is time-consuming and that the department expects tools such as AI may help in the future.

Jungels emphasized that while some provisions have helped speed portions of processing and reduce jail population, they also create budget-management impacts, including overtime and administrative costs. He said some parts of the initial law were later amended by “trailer bills” to clarify language. Committee members asked additional questions about court appearance rates and whether the department had taken a policy stance on the law; Jungels said the office is implementing and complying with the law and that he spoke personally, not as a policy spokesman.