Today, Governor Pritzker will sign the Pretrial Fairness Act into law and bring an end to wealth-based pretrial incarceration in Illinois. When the law goes into full effect in January 2023, it will end money bond, dramatically reduce the number of people jailed pretrial, and transform our state’s pretrial justice system. Read more about the Pretrial Fairness Act’s key accomplishments in this one-pager. This monumental victory is the result of years of statewide community organizing led by the Coalition to End Money Bond and the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice. Our efforts were supported by the diverse array of more than 100 organizations that endorsed the historic legislation, including racial justice activists, faith-based groups, policy organizations, and advocates against domestic violence and sexual assault.

The Pretrial Fairness Act is contained in HB 3653, the criminal justice omnibus bill championed by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus. The omnibus bill was developed in response to Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in every corner of Illinois and across the nation last summer following the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Legislators saw the unprecedented protests as a mandate to bring sweeping changes to the state’s criminal justice system. By signing this transformative legislation into law, Governor Pritzker and the Illinois legislature have taken a bold step to advance racial justice in Illinois and stand with the millions of people who took the streets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. 

From Waukegan and Rockford to East St. Louis and Carbondale and everywhere in between, money bond has destabilized communities by caging people not because they pose a danger to the community but because of the size of their bank account. Ninety percent of people incarcerated in Illinois’ 92 county jails are awaiting trial, and a majority of them are incarcerated only because they can’t afford to pay a money bond. This destabilization has made our communities less safe, while claiming to be done in the name of “public safety.” The Pretrial Fairness Act will impact tens of thousands of people every year, many of whom previously would have been incarcerated while awaiting trial as a penalty for poverty. 

By ending money bond, Illinois is not only creating a fairer pretrial justice system, we are striking a massive blow to the racist prison industrial complex. Money bond has been aptly referred to as the “grease” that keeps the punishment bureaucracy churning. Wealth-based pretrial jailing has coerced so many of our community members into accepting plea deals they may not have if the court system had respected their right to be presumed innocent and free awaiting trial. Pretrial incarceration has also been found to increase the likelihood that someone will be arrested again in the future. This is a direct result of the way pretrial jailing destabilizes people’s lives, often causing them to lose jobs, housing, and even custody of their children. Over time, the changes brought about by the Pretrial Fairness Act will not only reduce the number of people caged in county jails, they will reduce the total number of people incarcerated in Illinois.

Over the last several years, thousands of people from across Illinois took action to win this change that many once believed was impossible. The Coalition to End Money Bond and Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice extend our love and gratitude to everyone who helped make this victory a reality for our state. The passage of the Pretrial Fairness Act makes clear that anything is possible when communities organize together to resist racism and systemic inequity. 

You can watch Governor Pritzker sign the Pretrial Fairness Act into law today at noon on https://multimedia.illinois.gov/press/press-live.html.