South Central Reporter

Illinois state Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro) is against a bill backed by Democrats that she believes would delay the process of reporting sexual assaults to police. 

Bryant took to Facebook to share her thoughts on the legislation, Senate Bill 333. 

"Yesterday, Senate Democrats passed Senate Bill 333, which would delay the process of notifying and reporting the sexual assault of survivors 13 years and older to law enforcement," Bryant wrote in a May 12 Facebook post. "On multiple levels, this is simply a bad bill. This legislation enables abusers, endangers local communities, and potentially prevents justice from being served."

In her post, Bryant shared a video of her speech on the Senate floor. In it, she pointed to different real-life scenarios that she believes highlight flaws in the legislation as proposed. During her speech, Bryant said, "We have worked very hard in the legislature to make sure that those who are being abused (sexually or otherwise) are taken care of. This takes us back 10 steps or more in that process. Law enforcement are uniquely trained to support victims of sexual assault. It’s preposterous. Absolutely preposterous that children should be allowed to be in the hospital for sexual assault without police involvement in any scenario."

Senate Bill 333 was sponsored by Sen. David Koehler (D-Peoria) and filed on Feb. 2, 2023. The bill establishes "procedures for a medical facility, physician, or nurse to report a sexual assault when the sexual assault survivor requests treatment at the medical facility." Under the legislation, if a sexual assault survivor consents to alert the police, staff must notify law enforcement as soon as treatment allows. If the offense happened somewhere outside the jurisdiction, the officer must notify the proper investigative agency. 

The legislation also said that "the health care provider must advise the survivor about the options for the timing of the law enforcement notification, ask the survivor if the survivor has been threatened, and offer to connect the survivor with a rape crisis center for safety planning, if appropriate. If a sexual assault survivor does not consent to notification being made as soon as treatment permits, notification to the law enforcement agency having jurisdiction must be delayed until after the sexual assault survivor leaves the outpatient treatment location, but no later than 24 hours after the sexual assault survivor leaves."

After the bill's passage, Koehler released a statement in which he said, “Many survivors know who assaulted them personally. By giving survivors the choice of when and how they would like to report their case to the authorities, we are giving them the ability to safely seek justice.”