Illinois Becomes First State to Eliminate Cash Bail

On July 18, the Illinois Supreme Court announced their long-anticipated ruling about the status of cash bail in Illinois. Would they rule that eliminating cash bail does NOT violate our state constitution? Indeed they did. 

The historic decision means that Illinois is the first state to eliminate cash bail as part of a landmark criminal justice reform law. Among the SAFE-T Act’s champions were Governor J.B. Pritzker and groups like the League of Women Voters.

The League of Women Voters of Cook County’s Criminal Justice Interest Group has fought since December 2015 for this moment. The inequities in the system had made it the number one item on our agenda to improve pretrial services in Cook County. 

For years, our meetings have been held every other month to discuss the information that has been gathered by interviewing the stakeholders within the system. In alternate months, we meet to discuss a book that deals with criminal justice issues.

Late last year, our group took on one of our most significant projects to date. We completed a 6-week project in partnership with the Civic Federation to compare pretrial hearings before and after the Pretrial Fairness Act was due to take effect January 1, 2023. 

As part of the project, 14 League members listened in on 25 sessions of Central Bond Court along with three members of the Civic Federation. We heard over 1,000 cases! Read the report with analysis and recommendations. When a downstate judge ruled that the law was unconstitutional, the Supreme Court agreed to decide the case.

As the September 18 “effective” date looms, consider what our group has always believed: that it’s only FAIR that detainees – many who are charged with low-level, nonviolent crimes – do NOT spend time in jail just because they lack the cash for bail as do the more privileged suspects.

Jan Goldberg is a board member of the League of Women Voters of Cook County and chair of its Criminal Justice Interest Group.