Illinois holds its police officers to some of the highest professional standards in the country. Officers must be trained, certified and continually retrained. Supervisors must meet additional requirements. Specialized assignments demand advanced credentials and ongoing education.
Yet the most powerful position in any police department — the chief of police — can still be filled with no mandatory statewide certification at all.
It is a policy failure with real consequences.
Police chiefs are not symbolic leaders. They set the use‑of‑force policy, oversee internal investigations, determine discipline, shape training priorities, manage budgets and define the culture of the entire department. Their decisions directly affect public safety, officer conduct, community trust and municipal liability.
While Illinois has a yearly police chief continuing education system, the state does not require mandatory certification to be hired as a police chief in Illinois. Members of the public have no consistent way to know whether their department will be led by a trained executive or by someone elevated through politics or convenience.
Illinois has already seen the results. Some examples:
Former Campton Hills Police Chief Steven Millar was placed on administrative leave amid an Illinois State Police probe and later resigned. He has been charged with 41 felonies, including official misconduct, misapplication of funds and theft between $500 and $10,000,
Former Galesburg Police Chief Russell Idle was placed on paid leave and then fired after a two‑week investigation into sexual harassment and discrimination policy violations, demonstrating how personnel‑conduct allegations can rapidly end a chief’s tenure and destabilize leadership continuity.
In Robbins, then-acting chief Carl Scott was charged with shoving and hitting a man at the police station, and later pleaded guilty to battery charges.
Short-tenured chiefs have cycled in and out of departments, leaving behind instability, uncertainty and legal exposure.
In some communities, the consequences are even more direct. CWBChicago reported in December that the police chief of Markham, Jack Genius, ordered an officer not to make a lawful felony weapons arrest of a convicted felon. The law was ignored. Public safety was compromised. In such cases, officers are forced to choose between following their training and following a chief who may lack the knowledge, judgment or ethical grounding to lead.
Why does this continue? Because voluntary certification preserves political flexibility. Under the current system, chiefs can be appointed based on loyalty, personal relationships or political convenience. Mandatory certification to get hired would not eliminate politics, but it would create a meaningful professional barrier between political favoritism and command authority.
Leadership in public safety must be earned through education, training and demonstrated competence.
Illinois demands constant accountability from officers — body cameras, reports, training and public scrutiny. But when accountability reaches the chief’s office, it too often becomes performative, not reform-minded. Real accountability moves up the chain of command.
Chiefs shape the culture in which officers operate every day. They decide whether misconduct is confronted or excused, whether training is modern or outdated and whether the department moves toward professionalism or slides into dysfunction.
Illinois should adopt the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police voluntary police chief certification standards — and make them mandatory. This requirement should apply to anyone serving as the top law enforcement authority in an agency, whether titled chief, sheriff, director, public safety administrator or any equivalent position. If you hold the top job, you should meet the top standards.
To be certified, you must complete an ethics form, agree to a background check and pass written and oral exams.
Mandatory certification would establish a baseline of professional competence for the individuals making the most consequential decisions in policing. It would ensure that the people responsible for discipline, policy and public trust have the training and preparation the job demands. And it would give communities confidence that their department will be led by someone who meets statewide standards — not just political expectations.
Every police chief, union, professional association, the Illinois Municipal League and other groups of elected leaders should support mandatory police chief certification. Their credibility is on the line as well. Endorsing this reform is not optional; it is a matter of professional integrity and public trust.
I say this as someone who has lived the responsibility. I am a certified police chief and continue to maintain my certification in retirement. I do so because leadership standards matter — and credibility in policing should never be optional. If chiefs expect officers to meet mandatory training requirements, they should be held to at least the same standard.
The only question is whether Illinois will formalize the requirement — or continue pretending that optional leadership standards are enough.
Tom Weitzel retired as chief of the Riverside Police Department in May 2020 after 37 years in law enforcement.