Public Act 100-0204, which took effect on August 18, 2017, amended the School Code to prohibit any schools from establishing a “student booking station” on school property. The law defines “booking station” as an area which operates “predominantly or regularly as a place of operation for a municipal police department” and “a site at which students are detained in connection with criminal charges or allegations against those students, taken into custody, or engaged with law enforcement personnel in any process that creates a law enforcement record.” 105 ILCS 5/10-20.60. In sum, the law provides that there shall be no place of detention or criminal processing established or maintained on the grounds of any school.
Despite the outright prohibition on student booking stations, the law does permit the use of temporary detention spaces when: (1) the underlying suspected or alleged criminal act is an act of violence; (2) the isolation of the student(s) is deemed necessary to the interest of public safety; and (3) no other location is adequate for secure isolation of the student(s). Under these circumstances, such detention spaces may be employed to detain the student(s) for a period no longer than that required to alleviate the threat to public safety.
All in all, this new piece of legislation will have minimal practical impact, in that the vast majority of Illinois schools do not maintain booking stations on school property.
