Today, President Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at forcing states that have ended or reduced the use of money bail in the pretrial process to reverse those policies. This executive order comes after weeks of fearmongering about pretrial reforms from the President. 
 

Statement from the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice:

“What the President is trying to do is terrifying, both for safety and for democracy. We are proud of the elected officials in Illinois for standing up against it. Flooding communities with masked agents and threatening one of our state’s most effective civil rights achievements, passed after years of advocacy from communities across the state, is the hallmark of a leader who cares only about his own power. The Pretrial Fairness Act has made Illinois safer and eliminated a system that privileged the wealthy. We are proud to live in a state where leaders won’t acquiesce to his attempts to send us back.” 

The Facts on Ending Money Bond

The president’s attacks on pretrial reform have centered on spreading misinformation about the impact of reforms. Lying has been the primary tactic used by opponents of ending or reducing the use of money bond to try to undermine reform efforts over the last decade. 

We’ve compiled some of the most frequently misinformation tropes along with resources that lay out the truth. 

Ending Money Bond Does Not Cause Crime to Increase

• This claim, made by President Trump, also played a prominent role in Illinois’ bad-faith debate over the Pretrial Fairness Act. It creeps up repeatedly as politicians continue to use the Pretrial Fairness Act as a punching bag. 
• It has been debunked time and time again.
• Researchers at Loyola University, who have studied bail reform in Illinois since its implementation, have found no increase in crime.
• In the years following bail reform in New Jersey, overall crime rates decreased, continuing a long-term trend. Comparing 2018 to 2016, rates of homicides, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries and thefts all fell by double digit percentages. 
• Crime rates throughout New Mexico continued to fall throughout 2017 and 2018 after pretrial reforms went into effect in 2016.
• The Brennan Center, for example, compared crime over six years in cities with bail reform to cities that utilized money bail. The study found no statistically significant relationship between bail reform and crime rates. That result held true when the researchers isolated cities with smaller reforms with those, like Houston, that had significantly reformed their cash bail systems.
• Brennan’s research is consistent with every other credible examination of the impact of ending money bail. Houston largely ended money bail for misdemeanors in 2019. The most recent report from the bail monitor found that recidivism had actually declined.

“Ending Money Bail Means Dangerous People Run Free.”

• Fearmongering politicians love to claim that without cash bail, dangerous people will be out on the streets. They hope the public will think that the natural consequence of pretrial reform is that judges release everyone from jail. 
• That suggestion is utterly false. In no city or state in America is someone charged with murder or sexual assault or any other violent crime automatically released from jail while awaiting trial.
• In places like Illinois, Washington, D.C., and in the entire federal system, judges decide whether to detain someone based on public safety, an analysis that includes the severity of the crime charged.

“Ending Money Bail Means People Won’t Come Back to Court.”

• One of the most common lies spread by opponents of reform is that people accused of crimes have no incentive to come back to court if their money is not on the line. 
• That claim should strike anyone with common sense as false, because missing court has consequences: namely, a warrant for arrest, arrest, and possibly subsequent detention until the resolution of the case.
• For one, much of that bond money never came back. Illinois bail disbursement data show that from 2016 through 2020, only about one dollar in five posted as bail was ever refunded to defendants, regardless of their attendance. The rest of the bail collected was used to satisfy court-imposed fines, fees, and other obligations following a conviction or guilty plea.
• Research also shows that claim is false.
• In study after study, researchers have found that court appearances in places reducing their reliance on money bail remain steady, and in some places, they even improved.
• That has been the case in Illinois since the implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act. In its first year of implementation, failures to appear dropped from 17% to 15%. 
• Washington DC ended its use of money bail in the 1970’s. From 2016-2020, more than 90% of people released awaiting trial returned for their court dates.
• After New Jersey implemented bail reform measures, people released pretrial appeared at 97.1% of their hearings in 2020, up from 92.7% in 2014.

“Ending Money Bail Means People Keep Committing Crimes.”

• One of the most common claims made by opponents of ending money bail is that it creates a “revolving door” at the jail, where people accused of crimes keep committing them because they are not detained and therefore receive no punishment. This myth is really the same as the “bail reform causes crime to increase,” but it is often focused on low-level offenses. 
• There is, however, no evidence that an end to money bail is creating a revolving door justice system or facilitating more criminal offenses.
• There is a serious disincentive to being arrested on a new case while awaiting the outcome of one that is pending. Prosecutors may seek sentencing enhancements, and multiple arrests may lead to pretrial detention. 
• And research shows that recidivism, for any type of crime, does not increase when cash bail is used less frequently. 
• Politicians can always point to isolated examples of people with long records who are released pretrial—which should, perhaps, indicate that an intervention other than arrest and jail might be more effective. Politicians can do that in places with or without money bail. A jail is not a warehouse for indefinite detention. Most people accused of crimes, especially misdemeanors, will eventually be released from jail, even if they cannot pay a money bail. They are not going to go to prison, and pleading guilty is often the fastest pathway to release. That is true across the country, in red cities and red states, and in blue cities and blue states.
• Of course politicians can point to people who commit serious crimes while released pretrial on something minor, which they claim is evidence of the failure of pretrial reform. But they also could do the same under a cash bail system. We cannot predict who will commit serious crimes, as we do not live in Minority Report. And no one inclined to commit a serious crime like murder will be deterred because he or she paid $1,000 or $2,000 in money bail to the court for a less serious offense. If a potential life sentence is not a deterrent, those lost funds certainly will not be.
• Cook County implemented bond reform measures in 2017, and following their implementation, there was a decrease in the percent of people rearrested on charges involving allegations of violence and no change in new criminal cases involving violence for people released pretrial.
• Following the implementation of bail reform measures in New Jersey, the percentage of people arrested for new crimes stayed virtually the same after bail reform as before: that rate was 12.7% in 2014, and 13.7% in 2017. And only 0.4% of people released pretrial in 2018 were charged with a serious violent crime while released pretrial.
• New York implemented bail reform measures in 2019, in the year after their implementation, over 97% of those released were not rearrested for a violent felony.

“Crime Is Out of Control in Chicago.”

• During his White House press conference, President Trump claimed that the Pretrial Fairness Act has been a “disaster.” Throughout the years, Trump has often claimed that crime in Chicago is out of control, no doubt focusing on a city with many Black residents and Black leadership. While we all want safer communities, the numbers tell a very different story. 
• Since July 2024, Chicago has experienced a significant decrease in robberies. The first three months of 2025 had the fewest robberies of any quarter in decades.
• Beginning in 2023, murders in Chicago began to decline, and in April 2025 Chicago had the fewest murders recorded in that month since 1962.
• Through mid-June, Chicago has seen a 40% decrease in shootings year-to-date compared to the same period in 2024.

Take Action

President Trump has said he wants to end the Pretrial Fairness Act and bring back money bail in Illinois. We are asking people from across the state to call on their legislators and Governor Pritzker to defend this historic victory from the Trump administration’s lies.

For decades, the size of a person’s bank account was the main factor determining who was jailed and who returned to the community while awaiting trial and presumed innocent. The money bond system caused countless people to lose their jobs, housing, and even custody of their children—not because they had been found to be a danger but simply because they couldn’t afford to purchase their freedom while awaiting trial.

What Donald Trump really means when he calls to bring back money bail is that he wants a system that punishes poor people and People of Color based on the size of their bank accounts and the color of their skin while rewarding wealthy and white people. Thousands of people from across our state came together to end this injustice; we cannot allow Trump to deny the will of the people.

Join us in calling on Gov. Pritzker and the Illinois legislature to protect the Pretrial Fairness Act.

TAKE ACTION