More than 40 academics and policy experts from across the state and country have called on the Administrative Office of Illinois Courts to protect the rights of people subjected to electronic monitoring and to halt the expansion of this harmful technology. As Illinois moves to implement Pretrial Fairness Act, they insist it is critical that the end of money bond and decrease in pretrial jailing are not responded to with an increase in other forms of pretrial injustices.

Electronic monitoring replicates many of the most significant harms associated with pretrial jailing. The severe restrictions associated with house arrest cause people to lose their jobs, housing and any semblance of stability that they may have had prior to arrest. Notably, research has found little to no evidence that electronic monitoring improves key pretrial outcomes like court appearance or community safety. Instead, it is found to undermine pretrial success by increasing technical violations and pretrial incarceration for people who would otherwise likely succeed on pretrial release without monitoring. A wealth of evidence demonstrates that the widely used forms of electronic monitoring technology are often hypersensitive and unreliable, triggering false alerts that are used to justify jailing individuals without due process for unsubstantiated violations. This ultimately worsens mass incarceration and amplifies existing racial disparities. For these reasons, these legal, academic, and policy experts implore the courts to move away from pretrial electronic monitoring under the new pretrial system in Illinois.

Read their letter here.