Illinois will become the first state in the nation to entirely eliminate cash bail.
In a 5-2 ruling, with Republican justices dissenting, Illinois’ highest court found that the elimination of cash bail is constitutional and will take effect statewide beginning Sept. 18, overturning a lower court ruling that had put that implementation on hold.
The ruling is a major win for criminal justice reform in our state.
Abolishing cash bail was part of the criminal justice reform agenda adopted in 2021 known as the SAFE-T Act. It was a piece of the groundbreaking “four pillars” agenda of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, approved following the police killings of George Floyd and others in the previous year.
Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx had made criminal justice and cash bail reform central to her run for office. It also made her a target of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, the organization’s (I refuse to call it a union) Trumper president John Catanzara and the state’s MAGA Republicans.
“It feels good to be on the right side of history,” Foxx said. “The reality is that we knew this legislation was constitutional and the reality also was that we had a bail system in place that wasn’t necessarily keeping our community safe, that was keeping people locked up in jail pre-trial simply because they were poor and not a threat to the public.”
Sadly, Foxx has announced she is not running for State’s Attorney next year.
Pretrial detainees make up more than 70 percent of the U.S. jail population — roughly 536,000 people. Many of them remain behind bars solely because they cannot buy back their freedom.
Originally, the bail system was intended to ensure that people would return to court to face the charges against them. Today, money bail is used to confine those who have been charged but not convicted and to criminalize poverty. It’s clear, from research and real life, that pre-trial detention does not improve community safety; it only hurts the individuals and families of those directly impacted.
The state’s Republicans and faux Democrats like Paul Vallas tried to make crime and criminal justice reform a campaign in the elections following the passage of the Safe-T Act, but that failed to get much traction state-wide. They were soundly defeated in the race for governor and control of the state legislature.
Some downstate sheriffs and prosecutors filed suit against the cash bail reform law after if was passed by the legislature and won a stay before a trial judge.
But the 5-2 ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the lower court and has brought our state a little closer to some justice in our criminal justice system.
Other states can follow our lead.