Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act helps marginalized people, so stop the fear mongering
On January 13, 2021, the Pretrial Fairness Act was passed as a part of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus’ criminal justice omnibus bill.
By passing this historic legislation, Illinois has ended the practice of incarcerating people prior to a conviction just because they are poor.
When this law goes into full effect in 2023, Illinois will become the first state to completely eradicate the use of money bail and set the bar for criminal justice reform nationwide. No longer will county court systems be financed on the backs of poor people; no longer will people’s lives be disrupted because they cannot afford to bond out of jail while awaiting trial.
The current system of wealth-based pretrial incarceration has devastated Black and Brown communities. I’ve seen the damage it’s caused first-hand, both as a law enforcement officer and as a community organizer.
For 12 years, I was employed by the Illinois State Police as a state trooper. I became a police officer in response to the huge divide that existed between law enforcement and the Black community. As a Black woman, I felt that I could serve as a bridge between my community and law enforcement. I was wrong. In spite of my tremendous efforts to right the wrongs I saw in law enforcement from the inside, I failed.
I resigned from Illinois State Police in 1997 when the isolation, harassment, and attempts to jail me for trying to do the right thing became too much to bear. I realized that problems with our criminal justice system were too deeply rooted and that systemic reforms were needed to address them.
In 2014, I wept bitterly for days when Mike Brown was killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson and left to lay on the cold street. Seeing people across the country come together and say “Black Lives Matter” inspired me to turn anguish into action. I became a community organizer with the United Congregations of Metro East and have been working to bring change to our communities ever since.
On Christmas Day in 2019, I found myself at the St. Clair County Jail trying to pay a $1,000 bond to bring a man home for the holidays - a man who I’d never met. That holiday season, UCM participated in a statewide holiday bailout as part of the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice. More than $70,000 was spent at eight county jails to bring 17 people home for the holidays. This small act put on full display how much harm the money bond system causes our communities.
More than 250,000 people are jailed in Illinois each year, and 90% of them are awaiting trial. The majority are locked up because they can’t afford to pay a money bond. Not only is this system causing people to lose stability in their lives from months, and sometimes years, of pretrial incarceration, but it’s also extracting millions of dollars from our state’s most vulnerable residents and most marginalized communities.
Since the Pretrial Fairness Act has passed, there has been a lot of fear-mongering from law enforcement claiming that ending money bond will endanger our communities. I ask them to pause and reflect on how the current system endangers our communities.
The Pretrial Fairness Act was endorsed by victims’ rights advocates because they believe it will make our system safer by prioritizing public safety over access to wealth when making pretrial release decisions.
When we allow our community members to be jailed because they can’t afford to pay a bond, we are making our communities less safe by unnecessarily stripping people of their jobs, homes, and sometimes even custody of their children. It is that type of destabilization that only worsens cycles of vulnerability and incarceration.
For those law enforcement entities that oppose this bill, please take off your cop hat and put on your humanity hat. This bill is the right thing to do.
This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 12:49 PM with the headline "Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act helps marginalized people, so stop the fear mongering."