SPRINGFIELD — Lawmakers reacted swiftly after Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigator Deidre Silas was killed on the job in January. In the first few weeks of session, multiple bills related to the state agency were introduced and sent to committee. For many lawmakers, the DCFS discussions are familiar. 

Silas was fatally stabbed during a welfare check in Thayer on Jan. 4, becoming the second DCFS worker to be killed during a home visit in recent years. In 2017, Dixon investigator Pam Knight was attacked while attempting to remove a child from his father’s custody. She later died.  

Now, with concerns about crime and public safety already dominating statewide campaigns, there’s a bipartisan push to pass legislation aimed at protecting DCFS employees and extending benefits to their families — but many bills still face an uphill battle. A core part of lawmakers’ efforts at DCFS reform is a bill that’s proven controversial in previous years. 

SB3070, which lawmakers are calling the Knight-Silas Legacy Act, would amend the Criminal Code and increase the penalty for committing aggravated battery against a DCFS worker without the discharge of a firearm to a Class 1 felony. It would be classified as a Class 2 felony if the battery does not involve the discharge of a firearm and does not cause great bodily harm or permanent disability or disfigurement to the employee.

The bill would place DCFS employees into the same category as other first responders like police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians. 

It was introduced by Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, and has a bipartisan group of co-sponsors, including Sens. Scott M. Bennett, D-Champaign; Steve McClure, R-Springfield; and Sally J. Turner, R-Lincoln, among others. 

The bill’s contents are not new. Nearly identical legislation has been proposed multiple times since 2018 in both the House and the Senate. 

Similar legislation has also been proposed in the House this year, though the House bill is less likely to pass than its counterpart in the Senate. 

Introduced by Rep. Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, in 2021, HB3933 currently has only one Democratic sponsor, Rep. Michael Halpin, D-Rock Island. It stalled in various committees last year but was assigned to the Judiciary-Criminal Committee this month. It has yet to be read again on the House floor this year. 

Doris Turner said she was moved to introduce the Knight-Silas bill after hearing of Silas’ death and talking to friends and family members who are social workers about how dangerous the field can be.  

“Truthfully, whenever a caseworker or investigator goes into a home, it’s a volatile situation. I mean, you’re not there because something good has happened,” Turner said. “We really want to make sure that we do everything that we can to protect these individuals.” 

McClure, one of the Knight-Silas bill’s Republican co-sponsors, has in previous years co-sponsored various versions of the bill. He said if the bill isn’t passed this session, the issue will surely come up again. 

“How many times do we have to go through this horrific situation where a DCFS investigator or employee is has been attacked or murdered?” McClure said. “It’s horrible.” 

If the Knight-Silas bill were to pass both the Senate and the House and make it to the governor’s desk, it would almost surely be signed into law; Gov. J.B. Pritzker has already publicly backed the bill. 

"These professionals do everything in their power to protect children, so it’s time for the legal system to treat them like the first responders they are,” he said. 

McClure said he’s worried the bill is now stalled in the Senate. Although the bill made it out of the Criminal Law Committee last week, Turner agreed to hold it on second reading and will need to negotiate with other senators to get more of them on board before it can be read a third time and receive a full vote.     

Turner was hesitant when asked about her plans to get the backing of progressives in her own party and other members of the Legislative Black Caucus.  

“I don’t want to speak for my colleagues,” she said. “But I will tell you that being concerned about crime in our communities is not new. It’s not new, and it’s not different.” 

She’s aware there’s pushback. In the past, it was blocked by members of the Black Caucus who didn’t support penalty increases of any kind, largely due to concerns over mass incarceration. 

Turner said she has also been in talks with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and the National Association of Social Workers, both of which oppose her bill in the current state. 

The ACLU’s main concern with the bill is that increasing criminal penalties won’t automatically decrease crime, said Heidi Dalenberg, managing legal director at ACLU of Illinois.

“Enhancing penalties, those measures don’t have a deterrent effect. They don’t keep workers safer,” Dalenberg said. “They keep people that commit attacks in jail longer. They have a punitive effect.” 

Knight-Silas bill co-sponsor Bennett said that while many of his colleagues are hesitant to embrace penalty increases, the bill has certain provisions preventing government overstep, such as an amendment requiring impacted offenders to be over 21 years of age.  

“I understand we don’t want to see more people incarcerated. But we also have to consider, who are we protecting?” Bennett said. 

Doris Turner, Bennett, McClure, and Sally Turner are all also co-sponsors on a bill that would amend the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act to include DCFS caseworkers. 

This would allow immediate family members of DCFS employees to receive health care benefits if those employees suffer a catastrophic injury or are killed while on duty. The changes would apply retroactively to one year before so as to include Silas’ family. 

“Her family no longer could be afforded the health care that was usual and customary to them because of what happened to her, because we put her out there on the line to do a job,” Sally Turner said. 

McClure on Tuesday introduced a bill that would allow DCFS workers to carry and use mace and pepper spray and provide training from the Illinois State Police to do so properly. The bill has 32 co-sponsors, a mix from both parties. 

But Dalenberg said arming won’t fully protect DCFS workers and the children and families under their protection.  

“In the vast majority of instances what the families need is help, not pepper spray,” she said. 

Most lawmakers and the ACLU can agree that there’s still much to be done to protect DCFS workers.

Protecting DCFS workers will take a two-pronged approach of both legislation and administrative changes within DCFS, said Doris Turner. Some potential actions might be increasing training opportunities, addressing staffing shortages, and potentially partnering with local law enforcement in some ways.  

“I think that we have to use all of the tools that we have in our toolbox,” she said. 

Turner said she will continue to talk to her colleagues who aren’t yet sold on the bill in hopes to get it passed in the Senate and sent to the House.  

“I would encourage my colleagues to not try to turn this into a partisan issue,” Turner said. “Let’s sit down and talk about what’s good for every community throughout the state of Illinois.”