The Illinois Criminal Code of 1961 and Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963

Illinois had no “Criminal Code” in the sense of a codified, systematic body of law functioning as an instrument of social control in a modern community. Many provisions had remained unchanged since Judge Lockwood, in submitting a revised draft of the Laws of Illinois to the Illinois General Assembly of 1827, described the small chapter on criminal jurisprudence as deriving primarily from a volume of the Laws of New York of 1802 which he brought with him to Illinois, and a volume of the Laws of Georgia which he located in the office of the Secretary of State. In fact, no serious attempt was made to revamp the criminal laws until 1869 when a commission was appointed by the General Assembly to revise the Law of Illinois. In 1874, chapter thirty-eight of the commission’s draft, which contained the bulk of the penal provisions, was submitted, adopted and designated the “Criminal Code.” Although amended many times in the eighty years between 1874 and 1954, no comprehensive revision has every been made.