Today, the Joliet Police Department and Will County State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow held a press conference regarding 21 gun, drug, burglary, and retail theft-related arrests as part of “Operation Street Sweeper.” During the press conference, State’s Attorney Glasgow shared misleading and some outright untruthful information regarding the Pretrial Fairness Act.

Statement from the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice: 

“We are disappointed but unsurprised to see Will County State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow trying to confuse the public about the Pretrial Fairness Act. From the moment this historic legislation was passed into law, the State’s Attorney has tried to derail and undermine this law aimed at confronting economic and racial injustice. Being untruthful about reforms aimed at addressing mass incarceration makes our communities less safe.

The State’s Attorney’s remarks were nothing more than a retread of the same tired tactics employed over the last several years.  While legislators across Illinois were working to make people safer by passing the Pretrial Fairness Act and its trailers, he was fearmongering and pontificating on Fox News where he wrongly predicted that the Pretrial Fairness Act would lead to “jail doors swinging open” and the “end of the days.

During the press conference, State’s Attorney Glasgow called for removing protections for accused people, allowing judges to jail all defendants while awaiting trial, no matter how minuscule the charge. We know precisely what this mentality leads to, because we have seen it before. It is what has driven mass incarceration and previously ensured that hundreds of poor people facing low-level charges were incarcerated in the Will County Jail.  We know it led to people pleading guilty not because they committed a crime but because they wanted to go home to their families. We know that it drove racial disparities and tore apart families and communities. 

The Pretrial Fairness Act is helping ensure that judges and prosecutors focus their time on cases that involve allegations of violence, rather than deciding that everyone should sit in jail unless they can purchase their freedom.

The reality is that since the Pretrial Fairness Act went into effect, both crime and pretrial incarceration are down. Additionally, millions of dollars in bail money that would have previously been extracted from our state’s most marginalized communities is now staying in those communities, making us all safer.”