Three years ago today, Illinois made history by implementing the Pretrial Fairness Act and becoming the first state in the country to completely eliminate money bail. Since then, there has been a decrease in both the number of people jailed pretrial and the rates of violent and property crime. Prior to the Pretrial Fairness Act, Illinoisans paid more than $120 million dollars a year to access the presumption of innocence. Now that our state has stopped making people choose between paying the rent or a ransom to bring a loved one home, that money is staying in our state’s most economically vulnerable communities. Illinois has illuminated the path for a pretrial system without money, and we eagerly await other states to join us. 

Despite the success of this historic civil rights legislation, the law continues to face attacks from opportunistic politicians seeking to undermine the law’s protections for accused people. As the U.S. continues to actively dismantle the commitments to racial justice it promised in the wake of the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020, it is more important than ever that we not only hold the line by defending the Pretrial Fairness Act, but also demand more.

The Pretrial Fairness Act and subsequent initiatives like the Pretrial Success Grants Program and the FAIR Act were not the end, but rather the beginning, of the process to transform our state’s pretrial system. We have more work to do in order to ensure that our communities fully benefit from these reforms. Far too many Illinoisans remain locked in cages while they await trial. Jurisdictions across the state have not fully implemented the law’s citation-in-lieu-of-arrest provisions, nor are they giving people who’ve been detained meaningful review hearings. And in our state’s largest court system, State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has put policies in place to circumvent the law’s protections for accused people while consistently spreading racist misinformation about the law.

Ending money bond was our target, but pretrial freedom has always been our goal. We are incredibly proud of what Illinois has been able to accomplish in the first three years of the law’s implementation, but we are not done. We are committed to continuing to struggle alongside community members, elected officials, and those court stakeholders who walk alongside us on the long, righteous road to freedom.