Gov. Pritzker: “Across the state, crime is up”

Posted on March 29, 2022
Gov. Pritzker (left) spoke during a press conference on Tuesday. (Photo courtesy: WJBC/File)

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – If you are on a ballot in 2022, you are talking about crime.

“Across the state, crime is up,” Gov. JB Pritzker said at a news conference Tuesday morning in his Springfield office. “We’ve seen this across the nation. There’s no doubt that some of the fact of the pandemic / recession caused people to be out of work (and) caused people to get involved with things they wouldn’t otherwise, so we have to be sure we are bringing order back and that we’re putting away the people who actually committed crimes.”

The news conference, to commemorate the centennial of the Illinois State Police, was one day after the governor’s last nominee to the Prisoner Review Board – Eleanor Wilson – went down in flames, with more than two dozen Senate Democrats choosing to join Republicans in not voting for her. As a board member pending confirmation, Wilson voted to set free prisoners sent up for long sentences for violent crimes.

And the governor, evoking the far-right, anti-Semitic “QAnon,” said Republicans were acting as the “GQP.”

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected].

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