2y ago

Cash bail disproportionately impacts communities of color. Illinois is the first state to abolish it

But Illinois is about to overhaul the system that upended Ross’ life. Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act, which abolishes cash bail as a condition of pretrial release, will take effect Sept. 18, making Illinois the first state to end cash bail and a testing ground for whether — and how — it works on a large scale.

Judges can still keep people accused of serious crimes behind bars pretrial, but first would have to go through a more rigorous review of each case.

Critics say cash bail policies are especially unfair to Black people and other people of color. A 2022 federal civil rights report on cash bail systems found that courts tend to impose higher pretrial detention penalties on Black and Latino people, citing a study that showed Black men received bail amounts 35% higher than white men, and Latino men received bail amounts 19% higher than white men.

24 comments

absolutely unequivocally a good thing. Cash bail is a purely evil system.
- It never made any sense to me.
  
  It doesn't make sense if you look at the US criminal justice system as a criminal justice system, but it makes a lot more sense if you look at the US criminal justice system as a feeder for for-profit prison systems, a way to demonize poverty, and a way to continue chattel slavery under the name "penal labor"
  
  Same. Under the bail system, the judge can essentially say that the "accused" is a threat to society or a flight risk... but they have money so I'm gonna let them run free until trial. If they're poor though, fuck 'em.
  
  Really? Never made any sense??? Did you ever consider Thinking Like a Racist™️? 🌈🇺🇸
JB pritzker on a roll??
- When Pritzker first got elected I was incredibly dubious. After all, we already had Trump as President and here is Pritzker, another hotel magnate, claiming he could do great things for Illinois. I have since been pretty impressed with everything he has done.
  
  He’s kinda been crushing it. Definitely a pleasant surprise. I think putting 50 million of his own dollars towards campaigning for a tax system that would dramatically raise his own taxes was a pretty impressive demonstration that his approach is a bit different from Trump’s.
  Also women’s healthcare, refugee support structures, LGBT inclusivity, legal recreational weed, union support, Election Day as a state holiday…the dude doesn’t suck.
  
  same
- He has been an excellent governor. All the conservatives in So. IL disagree, but when you ask them why, the literal only reason is “he raised the gas prices!!” They ignore the fact that Illinois has had a balanced budget for the last four years, that we are slowly climbing our way out of debt, that marijuana is legalized, cash bail has been ended, Southern Illinois has received a fuck load of infrastructure money, etc. They also ignore the fact that Southern Illinois is the prime reason WHY Illinois is so broke. Southern Illinois is where the majority of the people on snap, tanf, Medicaid, and other social programs are. They all conveniently ignore that though.
  
  Conservatives sucking at the public teat while bemoaning the evils of "socialism"? Say it ain't so!
New Mexico mostly eliminated cash bail about seven years ago but there was still issues . I hope Illinois learned from our mistakes when they wrote their law .
- What sort of issues did NM run into?
  (And may I say, I love visiting and also am always surprised and amazed at how progressive and cool NM seems to be; I grew up in AZ... now in CO)
What's the difference between cash bail and non-cash bail?
- Cash bail is giving the court a lot of money as a pledge that you will show up for your trial. If you show up, you get the money back. The point is that it's a life-changing amount of money and losing it would be worse than the consequences of being convicted.
  Non-cash bail is mostly promising to show up for your court date and not commit any more crimes in the meantime, but there can be restrictions like wearing an ankle monitor and not leaving the state.
  
  Also, if the crime is serious enough, the judge can rule to not release at all. One of the screaming points for conservatives in the state is that rapists and murder suspects are just going to be allowed to go free, which is not true at all. There is a list of serious crimes in the statute that judges are granted heavy discretion over in regards to whether the defendant should actually be released.
  ALSO, think of this as a way to combat recidivism. One of the reasons people continue to commit crimes even when they’re incarcerated because they can’t afford bail is because they lose their jobs. They end up in jail for a week or more and don’t show up to work, they lose their job that was likely hard for them to get in the first place. It’s a major part of the prison industrial complex and the Right’s war against the poor. Ending cash bail takes away a major component of that.

24 comments