Five years ago today, the Coalition to End Money Bond won General Order 18.8A in Cook County.   This pretrial justice reform has led to a decrease in the number of people incarcerated in Cook County Jail of more than 2,000 people on any given day and more than 10,000 people a year– that’s 50,000 fewer people incarcerated pretrial over the course of five years! This significant reduction in the number of people incarcerated pretrial occurred without any increase in the rate of people being rearrested or missing court while awaiting trial. 

On September 17, 2017, Cook County implemented General Order 18.8A, a court rule instructing judges to set monetary bonds only in amounts that accused people could afford to pay. The Order was issued in direct response to our organizing and our efforts to support a class action lawsuit, which alleged that the Cook County Courts were violating the constitution by setting unaffordable money bonds in people’s cases. 

During the initial months of the Order’s implementation, our Coalition organized more than 100 community members to watch bond court in an effort to hold judges accountable to the Order. Those accountability efforts, which have continued over the last several years, played a major role in the Order’s decarceral impact. You can read about our courwatching efforts in our Coalition’s first report: Monitoring Cook County’s Central Bond Court. Our Coalition would go on to release two follow up reports on the Order’s implementation, “Shifting Sands” in 2018 and “Protecting Pretrial Freedom” in 2019. Our reports highlighted that pretrial reforms were good for community safety and well-being. During the same years that the number of people in Cook County Jail declined by more than 40%, Chicago experienced an overall reduction in violent crime. Between January and June 2018, while General Order 18.8A was newly in effect, violent crime in Chicago declined by almost 8% when compared to the same period in 2017.

Two academic studies also documented the impact of the Order on Cook County’s community. They found: 

• There was an overall decrease in the percentage of people rearrested while on pretrial release compared to before General Order 18.8A, including a decrease in the percentage of people rearrested on charges involving allegations of violence. The JFA Institute’s analysis also noted a decrease in reported violent crime during the first year of the Order’s implementation. There was no significant increase in crime or missed court dates.

• “General Order 18.8A had no effect on the odds of new violent criminal activity of defendants released pretrial,” according to research conducted by Loyola University Chicago. Only 3% of people released after General Order 18.8A had a new criminal case involving allegations of violence filed—the same percentage as before General Order 18.8A.

Although some judges continue to ignore the Order by setting unaffordable money bonds, and some elected officials continue to attack pretrial reforms, the reduced use of money bond has caused a significant and long-lasting reduction in the number of people incarcerated in Cook County Jail. It has also helped make clear that we can reduce pretrial jailing and respect people’s rights, all while keeping our communities safe. The Order has proven to be an important stepping stone in ensuring that pretrial freedom is accessible to all. Most importantly, the Order paved the way for more transformative changes to take place statewide. 

Five years later, we are just three months away from the implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act, a law that will completely abolish the use of money bond and dramatically reduce pretrial jailing across Illinois. The campaign to pass this law was led by the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, a statewide network that grew out of the Coalition to End Money Bond and movement for bond reform in Cook County. One of the law’s sponsors, State Senator Robert Peters, was formerly an organizer with The People’s Lobby, one of our Coalition’s member organizations. The law takes the work we began in Cook County and realizes its ultimate goal: ending wealth-based jailing once and for all in Illinois. 

The implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act is the result of tireless organizing and advocacy by countless community members throughout Illinois. We have so much to fight for as we push toward full implementation in 2023 and beyond, but for now we pause to celebrate just how far we’ve come in the movement for pretrial freedom for our communities.