Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza announced her mayoral campaign yesterday railing about crime at a time when murders in Chicago are at a historic low and the city has experienced a significant decrease in robberies. Instead of celebrating this reality, Mendoza is choosing to push regressive policy proposals. Taking a page from Trump’s playbook, Mendoza took a shot at Republicans’ favorite punching bag: the Pretrial Fairness Act. Mendoza’s campaign announcement called for the repealing provisions of the Pretrial Fairness Act that ended Illinois’ use of money bond and now ensures that release decisions are based on public safety, not the size of a person’s bank account.

Like Trump, Mendoza has consistently used tragedies to fearmonger and score political points with little regard for the truth. Last May, she attempted to place the blame for the tragic death of Officer Enrique Martinez on the Pretrial Fairness Act, claiming that it “permits violent offenders accused of heinous crimes to be released on electronic monitoring” despite the fact that the man accused of his murder was actually on pretrial release for a drug offense—defined nowhere in the country as a violent crime. And just last month, Mendoza tried to capitalize on CPD Officer Bartholomew’s death, calling for the wholesale repeal of electronic monitoring. In reality, a host of factors contributed to the shooting, including the fact the gun used was purchased illegally in a store that has been repeatedly cited for illegal sales and that law enforcement failed to execute the warrant issued for the alleged perpetrator’s arrest six weeks before the fatal shooting.

The truth is that the Pretrial Fairness Act is working. Since the Pretrial Fairness Act was implemented, $250 million per year has remained in communities because families did not need to purchase their loved one’s freedom. After the law took effect, the number of people incarcerated pretrial decreased by 14% in urban areas and 25% rural counties after the law went into effect, while violent and property crime decreased in urban and rural areas across the state. In Cook County, the state’s largest court system, 94% of the close to 160,000 people released awaiting trial since the law went into effect have not been rearrested for a crime against a person. Ninety-nine percent of people on electronic monitoring are compliant. 

If Mendoza were serious about public safety, she would have launched her campaign with a commitment to proven interventions like resourcing violence prevention, behavioral health, and community investments shown to reduce shootings and domestic violence. Mendoza’s choice to instead spread misinformation about the actual state of public safety in Chicago only demonstrates her disconnection from voters who want both safety and justice.