Illinois on Track to Become First State to End Cash Bail

The effort to end cash bail nationwide recently got a huge boost: On January 13, 2021, the Illinois general assembly passed the Pretrial Fairness Act, which will phase out the use of wealth-based pre-trial detention over the next two years. The bill now heads to Governor Pritzker, who is expected to sign the bill into law.

Remarkably, this bill does not replace cash bail with a problematic alternative—which is what may have doomed California’s effort last year to end cash bail. The proposal, Proposition 25, replaced cash bail with a risk assessment system that many feared would reproduce the same racial and socioeconomic inequities that cash bail does, while doing nothing to actually drive down the number of people caged pre-trial.

Instead, Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act seems laser-focused on reducing pretrial detention. No misdemeanors—with the exception of domestic violence misdemeanors—are eligible for pretrial detention (no word on whether cops and prosecutors will just start charging more felonies, but this blanket exclusion is significant progress). Courts will have to start from the presumption that people accused of crimes should be free (rather than detained) pending trial. Electronic ankle monitors are still an option, but are considered a last resort. Encouragingly, jail time credit is given for time on electronic ankle monitors and periodic reviews before a judge are required to assess whether continued monitoring is necessary, in recognition of how invasive and punitive electronic ankle monitors are. It’s an open question if this system will lead to an increase in the use of electronic ankle monitors, which tend to increase rates of incarceration (because it is so easy to violate the burdensome requirements of these monitors), but the acknowledgement that electronic ankle monitoring is a form of detention is enormous progress.

Shout out to the Coalition to End Money Bond, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, and the Chicago Community Bond Fund for tirelessly working year after year to achieve this victory. We anxiously await the governor’s signature and hope that other states will follow Illinois’ lead so that one day soon, no one will be caged because of how much money they don’t have.

You can read more about our successful bail case in San Francisco here, our ongoing bail case in Sacramento here, and our latest bail case challenging bail in ICE detention hearings here.