Peoria, IL Public Conduct: Loitering Rules (2026)

Section 20-220, "Gang loitering," authorizes a police officer who observes a criminal street gang member loitering with others in a superintendent-designated area to order the group to disperse from within sight and hearing of the location, and to warn that failure to obey, or returning to loiter within sight or hearing during the next three hours, triggers arrest. The superintendent of police designates enforcement areas by written directive only after determining gang loitering has let street gangs control an area, intimidate residents, or conceal illegal activity, consulting police gang specialists, elected officials and community organizations, with periodic review of the designations.

Subsection (c) requires the superintendent to promulgate procedures preventing enforcement against constitutionally protected collective advocacy. "Gang loitering" is defined as remaining in one place under circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe the purpose is to help a gang control an area, intimidate others, or conceal illegal activity, and "criminal street gang" requires an ongoing group of three or more whose members have engaged in a pattern of enumerated felony offenses, such as murder, armed robbery, aggravated battery, or drug trafficking under the Cannabis Control Act or Illinois Controlled Substances Act, with two qualifying acts within five years of each other counting as a pattern.

Violating a dispersal order, or resuming gang loitering within sight or hearing of the order during the following three hours, is punishable by the Sec. 1-5 fine, imprisonment up to six months, or both, and a second or subsequent offense carries a mandatory minimum of five days in jail. The companion Sec. 20-221 applies an identical dispersal-and-penalty structure to narcotics-related loitering in separately designated areas.