In 2016, a small group of base-building organizations, faith leaders, policy experts, service providers, lawyers, and abolitionist community organizers came together to demand Cook County end its unconstitutional use of money bond. Together, we launched a campaign to reduce pretrial jailing as the Coalition to End Money Bond and helped identify and support people in Cook County Jail suing the Cook County criminal court system to challenge their unaffordable money bonds. Eight years later, we have eliminated money bond statewide. While our work will continue, we will no longer be organizing under the Coalition to End Money Bond name.

In 2019, our Coalition formally expanded our work statewide and launched the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice with new partner organizations from across the state. The Network’s more than 40 organizations are committed to reducing pretrial jailing and the harm caused by the pretrial legal system. The Coalition is honored to be part of the statewide movement that led the campaign to end money bond in Illinois with the passage of the Pretrial Fairness Act. Going forward, all of our work will take place under the banner of the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice. 

Over the last eight years, our Coalition has helped reduce the number of people passing through Cook County Jail by more than 10,000 people each year, reduced the number of people subjected to pretrial electronic monitoring while expanding their rights, and participated in the statewide campaign to make Illinois the first state in the country to completely end the use of money bond. Because of our collective work, tens of thousands of people have been able to avoid pretrial jailing in Cook County, and now millions of dollars that would have been extracted from our most marginalized communities are available for rent, food, and other essentials. Our work in Cook County has shown the country that it’s possible to dramatically reduce pretrial incarceration without a rise in missed court dates or new arrests while people are awaiting trial.

We deeply appreciate everyone whose work made this monumental effort possible, and we look forward to continuing to work together to further reduce pretrial jailing and electronic monitoring. We are honored to work with our partners across the state in the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice to hold the courts, prosecutors, and elected officials accountable to the Pretrial Fairness Act’s promise and defend this historic legislation from rollbacks in the legislature.