Illinois Statutes Chapter 5. General Provisions § 283/5. Legislative declaration

§ 5. Legislative declaration. Public corruption is a far-reaching, continuing and extremely profitable criminal enterprise, which diverts significant amounts of public money for illicit purposes. Public corruption-related schemes persist despite the threat of prosecution and the actual prosecution and imprisonment of individual participants because existing sanctions do not effectively reach the money and other assets generated by such schemes. It is therefore necessary to supplement existing sanctions by mandating forfeiture of money and other assets generated by public corruption-related activities. Forfeiture diminishes the financial incentives which encourage and sustain public corruption, restores public moneys which have been diverted by public corruption, and secures for the People of the State of Illinois assets to be used for enforcement of laws governing public corruption.