This past Monday, the Coalition to End Money Bond was in Springfield for the first of three public hearings being hosted by the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Pretrial Practices. These hearings are happening because you sent them hundreds of postcards and nearly 1,000 of you signed a petition calling for a public hearing on pretrial practices in our state. Even though the public was only given ten days notice before this hearing, representatives from the ACLU of Illinois Springfield Chapter, Faith Coalition for the Common Good, and two community members from Peoria joined coalition members from the ACLU of Illinois and Chicago Community Bond Fund to call for an end to money bond and pretrial incarceration in Illinois.

Eight members of the Commission heard passionate testimony highlighting the negative impacts of pretrial incarceration and calls for supportive services and statewide reform through a proposed Supreme Court rule that would eliminate pretrial incarceration due to unaffordable money bond. Speakers reinforced that we cannot afford to wait to reform Illinois’ pretrial justice system and dramatically reduce the number of people incarcerated while awaiting trial in our state. More than a quarter of a million people pass through our state’s 92 county jails every year. The injustice of the current wealth-based system is needlessly harming millions of people across Illinois.

Many of our arguments for a fairer pretrial justice system were met with comments regarding the small budgets of some counties, which may struggle to allocate the funds necessary to implement the reforms we are proposing. Many of these counties, however, dedicate substantial funds to the enormous cost of jailing people who are presumed innocent. The money is always there for criminalization and incarceration, but never available for preventive and healing resources. With fewer people jailed while awaiting trial, money can and should be reallocated from corrections to the much less expensive options of phone call and text message reminders and providing supportive services in the community. What Illinois cannot afford is to continue down the failed path of pretrial punishment.

The process of building true community safety will involve long-term investment in marginalized communities—the very same communities targeted by criminalization and most impacted by money bond and pretrial incarceration. The current pretrial justice system in Illinois is actively contributing to the destabilization of these vulnerable communities and thus, actually undermining public safety. Our vision of justice reform and safety will require disinvestment from systems of criminalization and incarceration. Illinois must begin to shift our current spending on incarceration toward investments in providing the resources that actually keep our communities safe, such as quality schools and housing, mental and physical health care, and jobs programs. The recommendations of this commission must recognize the value of prevention and community well-being.

Join us as we lift up this vision at the next public hearing on May 6th in Urbana! We are excited to join the Campaign County Bailout Coalition, First Followers, ACLU of Champaign County, and Believers Bail Out for a rally to end money bail before heading into the second public hearing on pretrial justice to make our voices heard! More info is on the Facebook event page.