by Vernal Coleman

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

In 2021, the number of people in Illinois killed from acts of domestic violence was growing at an alarming pace, and state legislators acted with a sense of urgency.

In a near-unanimous vote, they passed legislation designed to blunt the trend. The state would establish a network of panels to review killings related to domestic violence and identify whether existing strategies for preventing them fell short.

But since then the state has made only meager progress in implementing the plans laid out in that law, and the number of domestic violence killings continues to increase.

The bill called for building the network over six years, but nearly four years after Gov. JB Pritzker signed it, only seven of the state’s 102 counties have helped establish fatality case review teams.

The first reviews began only late last year, and key deadlines have been missed. An initial report of statewide policy recommendations based on reviews by the panels was expected to be delivered to lawmakers in April 2024. But that has yet to happen.

The most glaring absence from the program is Cook County, which is home to Chicago and accounts for nearly 40% of the state’s population. Discussions between organizers of the initiative and agencies that could take charge of a local review panel in the county have failed to yield a commitment.

People familiar with the effort say a lack of funding and a gap in leadership have slowed the initiative’s progress. The law does not provide money to staff the local review panels, hampering recruitment of people to serve. Moreover, a top state administrator in charge of developing the network abruptly left the project and was only recently replaced.

Illinois Sen. Celina Villanueva, one of several sponsors of the bill creating the initiative, acknowledged the delays but expressed confidence in the overall direction. “My hope is that once everything is fully established, that it’s a strong working mechanism to be able to address the larger issues of why we passed this bill to begin with,” she said.

Cristin Evans, spokesperson for the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, the state agency that oversees the review effort, said that “the amount of time it has taken for teams to conduct their first review is not unexpected given the structure and complexity of the initiative.”

The current teams are on track to complete a minimum of two cases in 2025, she added.

Recent killings underscore the urgency of addressing breakdowns in the systems designed to protect people from domestic violence. In November, Chicago police found Lacramioara Beldie stabbed to death in an apparent murder-suicide at the hands of her estranged........

© ProPublica