Two years ago, the Illinois legislature passed the Bail Reform Act of 2017. That bill was an important first step toward fixing our unjust pretrial system. Now, Illinois is at a crossroads. While some people are saying these modest changes have gone too far, we know they have not gone far enough.

On Tuesday, April 30th, the Illinois House of Representatives Judiciary-Criminal Committee is hosting a subject matter hearing on bail reform. The hearing will include structured testimony by proponents and opponents of bond reform in front of the committee members. Legislators will also be able to ask questions of the speakers. The Coalition to End Money Bond and our allies will be there to speak on behalf of both protecting existing reforms and advancing transformative changes to end wealth-based pretrial incarceration. Join us by filing a witness slip in support of reform!

If you support an end to money bond and pretrial incarceration in Illinois, please take a minute to file a witness slip in support of bail reform before 12pm (noon) on Tuesday, April 30, 2019! The link and instructions are below.

To file a witness slip:

1. Go to this link (or copy and paste into your browser: http://my.ilga.gov/WitnessSlip/Create?committeeHearingId=17063&legislationId=0&legislationdocumentid=0)

2. Fill out the form with your information. Note that most fields are mandatory. If you do not officially represent a firm or organization, please write “SELF.”

3. For proposition, please click “PROPONENT.”

4. For testimony – if you are just filing a slip, choose “record of appearance only.”

5. To submit the created slip, accept the terms and click the button “create slip.”

Thank you for supporting pretrial freedom in Illinois!