Concurrent Sentencing Must Be Abolished When Multiple Violent Crimes Result in a Single Effective Sentence, Justice Collapses
By Chief Tom Weitzel (Ret.)
Fellow of Law Enforcement – Awake Illinois
February 27th, 2026
There is a quiet provision in Illinois law that most citizens never hear about until someone they love becomes a victim. It rarely becomes the focus of political debate or campaign slogans, yet it shapes sentencing outcomes in courtrooms across this state every day. It is called concurrent sentencing, and it is a fraud on public safety.
Under Illinois statute 730 ILCS 5/5-8-4, judges may, in most cases, order multiple felony sentences to run concurrently unless specific statutory triggers require otherwise. In practice, that means a defendant convicted of multiple violent felonies can serve those sentences concurrently rather than consecutively. In plain language: commit four violent crimes and serve time for one. That is not accountability. That is consolidation.
Concurrent sentencing does not just flatten punishment on paper — it does so in practice in ways that shock the conscience. Consider this case reported by CWB Chicago: in December 2022, a crew of four men, Marcus Carter, Dashun McGraw, Marquise Green, and Marchello Hicks — carried out at least seven separate armed robberies, boxing in victims in parked cars, pointing guns at them, and taking phones, wallets, and other possessions. Each was a separate violent crime involving distinct victims. Yet, despite seven counts of armed robbery for each defendant, the judge imposed ten-year terms on all counts to be served concurrently — meaning seven distinct acts of violence resulted in a single effective sentence. All four men will receive credit for time served and a 50% reduction for good behavior, further reducing their effective time. You can read the reporting here: CWB Chicago: “2 more members of prolific armed robbery crew get 10-year prison sentences” (CWB Chicago).
If someone commits four-armed robberies, there are four separate victims, four separate moments of terror, and four separate violations of the law. Yet under concurrent sentencing, punishment often does not increase in proportion to the number of crimes committed. The second victim effectively disappears at sentencing. The third disappears. The fourth disappears. The convictions may appear on paper, but the imposed time often reflects only one controlling sentence.
“Concurrent sentencing is state-sanctioned leniency for violent criminals — and it puts innocent Illinois families at risk.”
— Chief Tom Weitzel (Ret.)
Justice must scale with harm. When sentencing fails to reflect the number of victims, it sends the wrong signal to offenders and the public. Anyone who has worked in law enforcement knows a simple reality: criminal behavior responds to incentives. When consequences escalate, behavior adjusts. When consequences flatten, escalation becomes less risky. Concurrent sentencing flattens consequences.
It sends a message — whether intended or not — to repeat violent offenders that stacking charges may not significantly increase their time in prison. Illinois already struggles with repeat violent crime. Instead of strengthening deterrence, we have built a system that compresses punishment. Prosecutors bring multiple counts. Courts impose concurrent terms. Release calculations center on a single effective sentence. Multiple acts of violence collapse into one block of incarceration.
Supporters of the current framework argue that judges need discretion. Judicial discretion is important, and courts must consider individual circumstances. Sentencing should not be robotic. But discretion should never become a routine mechanism that diminishes accountability for repeated violence. When multiple serious felonies are served concurrently, the law stops escalating punishment and instead absorbs risk. Innocent communities bear that risk.
If a person commits one violent felony, the law punishes it. That is the baseline. If the same individual commits three additional violent felonies, separate acts, separate victims, the punishment should increase proportionally. Anything less weakens deterrence and undermines confidence in the justice system. The public sees multiple convictions announced and assumes proportional punishment follows. Too often, that assumption is incorrect.
Concurrent sentencing also obscures transparency. Court records may list multiple guilty findings and press releases may describe several serious charges. Yet few citizens understand that those sentences often merge into a single controlling term. The result is an illusion of severity rather than true accountability. Justice is not about optics. It is about consequences that reflect reality.
This debate is not about minor nonviolent offenses or technical violations. It is about armed robbery, aggravated vehicular hijacking, home invasion, aggravated battery with a firearm, repeat weapons offenses, and other violent Class X felonies involving force. These crimes create real victims and trauma lasts. When there are multiple victims, sentences should stack automatically.
When a violent crime is committed while an offender is on pretrial release, probation, parole, or mandatory supervised release, sentences should stack automatically, not optionally or selectively. Escalation must mean something. Illinois should amend 730 ILCS 5/5-8-4 to require consecutive sentences for violent felonies involving force or the threat of force. The presumption of concurrency in these cases should be eliminated.
Critics will argue that requiring consecutive sentences will increase prison populations and strain state budgets. Perhaps it will. But public safety is not free. The cost of failing to deter repeat violent offenders is measured not only in correctional dollars but also in trauma, shattered families, emergency room visits, and lost lives. There is always a cost. The question is who pays for it.
Under the current system, too often law-abiding families bear that burden. They believe multiple convictions mean meaningful accountability, only to find the law compressing their pain into a single sentence. Concurrent sentencing is not a minor procedural detail buried in the legal code. It is a structural weakness in Illinois criminal law that undermines deterrence, diminishes proportionality, clouds transparency, and erodes public trust.
The justice system must send a clear, unmistakable message that every violent act has consequences. Not a discounted consequence. Not a consolidated consequence. Its own consequence. Illinois must abolish concurrent sentencing for violent felonies. Every victim deserves recognition in sentencing, and every repeat offender should face escalating penalties rather than discounted ones. Concurrent sentencing is a fraud against public safety.
It must end.
Tom Weitzel is a retired Chief of Police in Riverside, Illinois, with 37 years in law enforcement. He now serves as a national advocate for officer safety, responsible media, and principled leadership. He publishes “The Memo” on Substack, a column dedicated to restoring balance to policing narratives and promoting ethical reform. He is a Fellow of Law Enforcement for Awake Illinois.
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Disclaimer –
The views expressed in this article are solely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other organization, employer, or company I have worked for. My current advocacy and commentary are independent and reflect my personal experiences and beliefs.
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About Tom Weitzel-
Tom Weitzel is a retired Chief of Police from Riverside, Illinois, concluding a distinguished 37-year career in law enforcement. He now serves as a national advocate for officer safety, responsible media practices, and principled leadership in policing. Weitzel is a Fellow of Law Enforcement at Awake Illinois, contributing his expertise to statewide public‑safety initiatives and policy development. He publishes “The Memo” on Substack and “Chief Weitzel’s Dispatch” for Awake Illinois, both focused on restoring balance in policing narratives and advancing ethical, evidence-based reform. He can be reached at tqweitzel@outlook.com -you can follow him on X at @chiefweitzel, TikTok at tiktok.com/discover/chief-tom-weitzel-ret and Substack at chieftomweitzelret.substack.com -and Awake Illinois at awakeil.com/fellowtomweitzel
Comments 17
That bother’s me when people do not care about the Law just for Illegals and themselves. They do not want to know the Law. Illinois is not the State it use to be Pritzker made sure of that and the big City Boys that care about themselves and have destroyed this once great State. They hate the Law and want only their Pension that comes from the Tax Payer and they spread untruths that the young believe in. WHAT HAPPENED TO EDUCATION?
Nice work Chief.
Concurrent sentencing has been going on since I came on the job in the mid 70s. It was not an automatic back then but it occurred.
How about the no cash bail laws? The ankle bracelet for the serious offenders? Many of the “sheep” that make up our middle class become collateral damage in this yet undeclared war. The soft on crime policies are just part of the left’s (including democratic socialist party, the real dems are nearly all gone) strategy. My opinion.
Invest in precious metal. I’m not talking silver or gold. And pay attention. Don’t be a sheep.
Though frustrating concurrent sentencing began in January 1973. In 1998 a revision to the law was established. Is is called consecutive sentencing.
While concurrent sentences are common, Illinois law requires consecutive sentences (one after the other) for specific, violent offenses, such as Class X or Class 1 felonies causing severe bodily injury, criminal sexual assault, or murder.
I was on the job for 30 years and witnessed both applications in the courtroom. Just something of note.
Sir:
I agree with what you say here. Fortunately, I or my family have not been a victim of violent crime. You really got my attention with “…four separate moments of terror”.
Chief, Unfortunately, the Democratic politicians care more about the criminals, than the law-abiding citizens of Illinois. Unless we all wake up and vote them out, I don’t see anything changing.
The Dems do anything for votes – even sell their own mothers! Just look at my fellow countryman “Raja” from Chicago Northside. In his TV campaign ads for Senator, first he put up his wife all dolled up during his wedding standing next to him and lately his mother with his father! Back in India when I was growing up ( I started my 1st std just a month after India won independence) I used to hear stories about some of these guys taking their sisters to job interview during the British Raj! Enough said.
Well done, Chief, and your biggest takeaway, in my opinion, is:
“Criminal behavior responds to incentives. When consequences escalate, behavior adjusts. When consequences flatten, escalation becomes less risky”.
I learned this as a child at home, and it was further emphasized by the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Catholic Elementary School- do the crime and you’ll do the time. Continue to do more crimes and the punishment will get much worse, not easier. Some, not all, but some of these violent criminals only understand one thing- punishment. And if it is applied quickly (and lawfully) and consistently, the lesson seems to last longer.
Crowded prisons are a problem . The answer is more prisons which makes streets safer and provides good construction jobs and guard jobs : Good jobs that cannot be exported , The answer to overcrowded prisons is more prisons
Amen to that! It’s indeed one of the most stupid arguments put forth, usually by Dems. Put them right next to all the new Data Centers mushrooming all over the place. The high rollers building them would likely donate the land to get their approvals. Plus, down the road, when it becomes apparent that many of the Data Centers are no longer needed, they can be converted to prisons too.
The Democrats have given up all pretense that they care about victims of crime. They are a party that stands for the rights of violent criminals.
Mr. Matthaei:
You are correct in that the Democrats could care less about the victims of crime. There are no votes to be gained by caring about the victims of crime. There are lots of votes to be gained from the criminals’ family’s’ by going easy on the criminals because the families can never admit that their little darling is a criminal because the families see only what they want to see.
Chief and JK. Thanks.
Fantasy becomes reality. Try being a police detective in an improvised community.
The cop and the states attorney are all the victim has. Work a murder with a conviction guy gets seventeen years and is out in eleven. Anguished mother calls your cell asking “why.” Armed robberies are another joke. Talk to a family with a small business who prosecuted and did the community right. Three years later, bad guy returns to the business to say hello, and intimidate.
Thanks to our liberal friends, at the various civil rights groups, we the cops cannot stop incarcerated individuals from writing to the victims families from the Illinois penitentiaries. Dude kills a young woman, after sexually assaulting her, then writes to the victims mom in South Shore, fantasying about having intercourse with the deceased victim he strangled to death.
I plea with the prison warden, we drive to Pontiac and ask him to stop, as he smirks at me. I offer to contribute to his commissary account, trying to bribe the mope.
Can’t violate his rights, I call states attorneys and the attorney generals office to no avail.
These are just poor people victimized and traumatized to the day they die. Breaks my heart even after successful prosecution there is nothing more I can do. Played cops and robbers from 79 to 2016, in my next life please Lord, make me a tradesman, or any honest job, when my shift is over, it’s over for ever, a job were I do not have to live with pain and suffering of good humans like most of us in society, who never will be made whole again in their lifetime, because of our failed judicial system in this democracy.
Thanks for the disturbing information about prisoners harassing families of victims. And thank you for your service! It is painfully apparent there is no justice in Illinois thanks to the Democrat stranglehold on the Illinois legislature.
I try to understand why anyone would think being soft on crime solves anything. It’s well known the cycle of violence in Black neighborhoods in Chicago. Nothing has changed since I’ve been alive, and has actually gotten worse.
Treating the symptoms seems to be all anyone can do. If Pritzker, (or any Democrat in this State) was any kind of a human being, he would balance the State’s budget, root out fraud and focus on aggressively funding rehabilitation through the private sector while sentences are served to their full term.
If anyone who has committed a crime wishes to rehabilitate themselves, and be given a second chance, then perhaps that decision can also be influenced by the sentiments of the victims themselves. Too brilliant I am sure.
But this was done very well, way way back in time when the Colonial French compromised with Native American jurisprudence – which was local in the extreme in terms of the victims deciding punishment or restitution.
Every single problem has a solution, somewhere in the middle, somewhere in the past – America was founded on this principle
Even Black elites do not care about Black people, and they blame whitey? It’s laughable. The Black pols allow districts they have control over to be runner down, overrun by guns, drugs, prostitution. The data is out there. Most Black murder victims are killed by another Black person.
Cornel West calls it Black faces in high places. He called Barack Obama a Black Mascot for Wall Street. He bailed out the banks, and let thousands of Black families lose their homes while the Banks gave out bonuses with OUR money. He let the Governor of Michigan and his cronies and Wall Street banks poison the water of Flint Michigan. Obama set the Middle East on fire too.
You see, despite their hand wringing, Dem pols do the bidding of Israel too. Jeffries is doling out AIPAC money right now to candidate who will play ball. They’re all getting filthy rich, and the Black pols are selling out black kids by condemning them to unsafe neighborhoods, poisoned food, polluted air and water, bad schools.
In the rural areas, even white people are living like poor blacks now. Crime, welfare, drugs, lousy schools.
It must be the Radical Left, huh?
They’re just all selling their sould for money.
I’ll give Trump credit though. Biden sold us out for a couple hundred million. Trump has clocked in over a billion in one year!
It doesn’t matter which party wins. They’re all political whores anyway. That’s why I laugh at the idiots on Cable TV, telling me how bad Trump is, or Kass and Miranda Devine talking about the Biden Crime family.
It’s all a hustle.
Wake up!
What also needs to end is the 50% reduction of sentence before the little angels serve a day!!
Newsflash, leftists!
No one with a working mind actually cares that Critics argument that requiring consecutive sentences will increase prison populations and strain state budgets!
Safety is one of the two main jobs of elected officials…….. along with infrastructure.
All else is fun, and fine, and makes for good talk at cocktail parties, but safety and infrastructure comes first and foremost.
Illinois, it’s grossly skewed Democrat leadership and its worthless governor, Pritzker, either ignore this or never knew this. I’m guessing the latter.