Every spring, Chicago sees rising temperatures and an increase in gun violence. Predictably, the Mayor and Chicago Police then carts out a new false narrative about the causes of crime in our communities to excuse aggressive policing and tough-on-crime legislation. Year after year, these falsehoods are routinely disproven. Just this week, Mayor Lightfoot again made unfounded claims that people incarcerated in their homes on electronic monitoring are driving gun violence in the city.

There is no data showing that people that are on house arrest with electronic monitoring are responsible for a rise in crime. In fact, a report from the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab demonstrates that there is no basis to draw a connection between the two. Of the 945 people placed on electronic monitoring for new gun-related charges between July 2019 and August 2020, less than 5% were rearrested while awaiting trial. Even more significantly, people rearrested for a felony gun charge while on EM made up less than 1% of Chicago felony gun arrests. The study found that the vast majority of people with new gun related charges placed on electronic monitoring who are rearrested while awaiting trial are arrested for misdemeanors.

Short of caging a person, electronic monitoring is the most significant restriction that can be placed on a person’s freedom while they are awaiting trial and presumed innocent. While there are no statistics showing a correlation between gun violence and electronic monitoring, there is a wealth of documentation of the detrimental impact the technology has on the lives of people subjected to it.  Simply put, electronic monitoring is an alternative form of incarceration. People on electronic monitoring find it nearly impossible to gain employment, attend medical appointments or even perform the most routine and necessary tasks like going to the grocery store or laundromat. 

In Cook County, people placed on electronic monitoring are caged inside their homes and cannot leave without permission from the Sheriff’s Office. If a person does leave their home without permission, they are arrested and can be charged with escape, a class three felony. Between January and May 2020, the State’s Attorney charged a mere 110 (less than 5% of people on EM), people with “Escape”, a 53% decrease from the same time period in 2019, despite the number of people on EM rising. There is no reason to believe that any significant number of people actively violate electronic monitoring conditions to commit crimes.

In the last year, Cook County has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people placed on electronic monitoring. Today, there are more than 3,500 people incarcerated in their homes on electronic monitors, which is 1,500 more than at this time last year. This is a direct result of tough-on-crime narratives perpetuated by the Mayor and Chief of Police that make judges wary of giving people their pretrial freedom. The solution to the expansion of electronic monitoring is not to cage more people in Cook County Jail. It is to give them their pretrial freedom to ensure that their lives and communities are not further destabilized while they await trial. 

Simply being uncomfortable with the charges an individual is facing is not a sound argument for denying them pretrial freedom. The reality is that 99.8% of people released while awaiting trial on felony charges are not rearrested in relation to new gun-related violent crime while their case is pending. A study by Loyola University found that bond reform efforts, which led to a dramatic decrease in the number of people incarcerated in Cook County Jail, have not led to an increase in crime. The presumption of innocence lies at the foundation of our criminal legal system, a fact all too often dismissed by Mayor Lightfoot and Police Superintendent Brown.

Mayor Lightfoot and Police Chief Brown have repeatedly conflated pretrial punishment  with post-conviction punishment. These arguments ignore the fact that arrests are not convictions, and that before a person is tried, a judge must make a determination as to whether or not they can await trial in their community. If the court believes a person is a danger, they have the ability to deny that person pretrial release, whether it be on bond or electronic monitoring. Taking away a person’s freedom is the most significant punishment that can be doled out by our state’s criminal legal system, which is why the decision to do so is made by the courts. It is not in the interest of justice or community safety for our Mayor to make generalized arguments against people’s pretrial freedom based on isolated incidents.

We cannot arrest and incarcerate our way out of gun violence, this has proven to be failed policy. Ultimately, these policies have destabilized the communities most directly impacted by gun violence and made them less safe. If Mayor Lightfoot and Police Chief Brown are serious about addressing gun violence, they would stop leaning into out-dated and imprecise rhetoric and address its root causes.