Last week, The Chicago Tribune published an article attacking bond reform in Cook County and attempting to undermine the efforts of community groups to reduce pretrial jailing. The article focused on relatively minor discrepancies in the data released by the Office of the Chief Judge that had concluded just about one half of one percent (.06%) of people released since reforms took effect were re-arrested on new charges that included allegations of violence. It was accompanied by an editorial calling for an external evaluation of the impact of changes in pretrial policy. A closer look reveals that the data discrepancies highlighted by The Tribune do not significantly impact the most important findings, including that the overwhelming majority of people released came back to court and were not re-arrested on charges considered “violent.”

Even more importantly, significant time has passed since the Chief Judge’s study was released. While The Tribune story and a related article self-published by two academics uses projections and estimates to predict that crime has increased, the simple truth is that crime in Chicago, including violent crime, is down over the same period of time that more people are being released pretrial. The argument that bond court reforms increased crime is disproven by the simple observation that crime has not, in fact, increased. This is true not only since pretrial release rates increased starting in September 2017, but also over the last decade in which the number of people in Cook County Jail has decreased by almost half.

Even taken on their face, however, The Tribune’s findings actually underscore what advocates and community members have been saying all along: increased pretrial release hasn’t made Cook County less safe. The article notes that, out of the tens of thousands of people released pretrial in the first 15 months after General Order 18.8A went into effect, only 21 people were accused of committing murder while on bond. This amounts to less than one-tenth of one percent of the tens of thousands of people released pretrial. Moreover, those 21 people are entitled to the same presumption of innocence that our Constitution demands, and only about half of homicide charges in Cook County even result in a homicide conviction. Chief Judge Timothy Evans has reported that 99.4% of people released on bond have not been arrested for the commission of any new violent offense. The Tribune article notes that, even when several additional offenses are added into the “violent” category (including several misdemeanors), 97.7% of people released haven’t committed those “violent” crimes while on bond. Enacting the most punitive policies for 100% of people because of concerns about that past actions of 2.3% of people is the failed logic of mass incarceration. We must reject that collective punishment approach.

While it may be tempting to focus on a small number of tragic cases in evaluating reforms to bond court, we must not overlook the core goals of pretrial reform: eliminating the role of wealth and honoring the presumption of innocence by ensuring pretrial release for the maximum number of people. The federal, Illinois juvenile, and Washington D.C criminal court systems have worked for decades without money bonds. New Jersey essentially ended money bond in 2017 and did not experience a significant increase in rearrest rates or missed court dates. In all these systems, as in Cook County, the vast majority of people released come back to court and are not charged with any new criminal offense.

The reality is that bond reform has made our communities safer by allowing tens of thousands of people to remain in their communities with their friends and families while keeping their jobs and housing. Their lives and their families’ lives also matter. Their increased wellbeing and improved outcomes due to bond reform have value. It is irresponsible to use a handful of tragic cases as an excuse to violate thousands of people’s rights and punish them and their families solely for being poor. The extremely high rates of success confirmed even by The Tribune’s analysis make clear that Cook County’s previous bond practices used unaffordable money bonds to needlessly punish and incarcerate many thousands of people who were no threat to public safety at all, and that is also tragic.

Instead of rolling back the progress made in Cook County, we should be expanding it statewide. Read our recently released policy vision and join our mailing list to get involved in the movement for pretrial justice in Illinois. Now is the time!