Today, Cook County judges are expected to stop assigning people awaiting trial to the Sheriff’s electronic monitoring program. Over the next year, the Sheriff’s Office will phase out its electronic monitoring program. Moving forward, Cook County will operate a single electronic monitoring program under Pretrial Services, which is part of the Office of the Chief Judge. While this change won’t eliminate the use of electronic monitoring—a harmful practice—it creates an opportunity to improve conditions for those subjected to it and significantly reduce its use in the largest court system in Illinois.

The Cook County Sheriff has operated one of the country’s largest and most restrictive electronic monitoring programs. For decades, Sheriff Tom Dart has imposed arbitrary restrictions on people on electronic monitoring that made our communities less safe. For many, being subjected to Sheriff’s pretrial electronic monitoring meant being released from Cook County Jail but experiencing many of the same harms at home. Countless people on electronic monitoring lost their jobs and housing, were prevented from accessing medical care, going to a grocery store or laundromat, and more. Even basic tasks like taking out the trash or getting the mail were near impossible. These restrictions weren’t required by law but rather, were policies chosen by the Sheriff’s Office. As Cook County proceeds with this transition, it is important that the Pretrial Services electronic monitoring program does not replicate the most harmful aspects of the Sheriff’s program. 

Transparency in program operations will also need to be maintained and expanded given that the judiciary is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). It is essential that Chief Judge Evans make more information about the program available to the public so that they can understand how it is changing and what people being subjected to it are experiencing. 

Through the dramatic reduction in pretrial jailing following the implementation of General Order 18.8A in 2017 and the Pretrial Fairness Act in 2023, Cook County has established itself as a national leader in pretrial reform. These efforts have shown that we can safely increase the number of people returning to the community while awaiting trial—including people facing serious charges—without seeing an increase in rearrests or missed court dates. It is essential that court stakeholders work together to ensure that this transition does not result in an increase in pretrial jailing. There is little to no evidence that electronic monitoring improves key pretrial outcomes like court appearance or community safety. People previously released on electronic monitoring can be released without digital surveillance and still succeed at very high rates.

In 2022, 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 reduced its use of pretrial incarceration without seeing an increase in missed court dates or rearrests. New Jersey’s experience shows that reducing pretrial incarceration can be safely achieved without relying on electronic monitoring.

Streamlining the county’s duplicative electronic monitoring programs stands to save millions of dollars and bring the county in line with the rest of the state where electronic monitoring is managed by Pretrial Services. The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice is calling on Cook County’s Board of Commissioners to ensure that the funds once used for the Sheriff’s electronic monitoring program are redirected towards affordable housing, job training programs, and mental health and substance use disorder treatment services.