In 2020, the Cook County Justice Advisory Council commissioned a review of Cook County’s pretrial electronic monitoring programs. After two years of research and review, Chicago Appleseed and CGL released their findings last September. This morning, The Coalition to End Money Bond and more than 65 supporting organizations sent a letter to the Cook County Board of Commissioners urging them to act upon the recommendations included in that review, especially the call to reduce the use of pretrial electronic monitoring and consolidate the county’s two electronic monitoring programs. The Coalition is also releasing the Principles for Respecting the Rights of Individuals on Pretrial Electronic Monitoring in Cook County, which have been endorsed by over 65 organizations and 20 elected officials. 

Cook County is home to one of the nation’s largest and most restrictive pretrial electronic monitoring programs. When the Electronic Monitoring Review was conducted, there were nearly nine times as many people on pretrial electronic monitoring in Cook County as there were in the entire state of New Jersey, which has dramatically virtually eliminate money bail and reduced its use of pretrial incarceration without seeing an increase in missed court dates or rearrests.