Illinois Continues To Lead Nation With Pretrial Policies That Center Safety and Justice

This fact sheet contains a correction.

Across the country, cities and states are looking for innovative ways to move away from unjust and unsafe cash bail practices that condition people’s pretrial freedom on their access to money. Illinois is leading the nation as the only state that eliminated cash bail in favor of a system that places safety and fairness, instead of wealth, at the center of pretrial decision-making.

Tomorrow marks one year since the implementation of the historic Pretrial Fairness Act in Illinois, which ushered in a new era of pretrial policy. Instead of assigning unconvicted people who could safely return to the community pretrial arbitrary and unaffordable cash bail amounts, the Pretrial Fairness Act uses individualized assessments of people’s unique circumstances to determine the conditions needed to promote pretrial success. Importantly, it also restricts the use of pretrial detention to specific cases where there is a concern for safety that could not be mitigated by any other condition.

While it is still too early to know the full impact of the Pretrial Fairness Act, early results are promising. The Pretrial Fairness Act is increasing fairness by ensuring people have access to just pretrial release without sacrificing public safety. Jurisdictions across Illinois have experienced a decrease in pretrial incarceration while maintaining rates of appearance in court and without increasing crime rates. Since the law’s implementation, jail populations have decreased by 14 percent in urban counties and 25 percent in rural ones.* Judges are also spending more time considering individual public safety factors: One study revealed that the time of detention hearings increased after implementation to a median length of 10–30 minutes, compared with 4–6 minutes before. The additional time Illinois judges are now spending on detention hearings allows them to make the most informed decisions about how to ensure pretrial safety.

Though historic, the Pretrial Fairness Act marked only the first step toward comprehensive pretrial justice. Many people become involved with the criminal legal system due to socioeconomic factors, such as poverty and unemployment, or the criminalization of behavioral health. By expanding access to community-based services pretrial, the Pretrial Success Act will address these underlying factors that drive crime and connect people to community resources—both of which can better ensure safety.

What is Illinois’ Pretrial Success Act?

The Pretrial Success Act invests $3.5 million in community-based services to increase success for people awaiting trial—defined as attending court appearances and avoiding rearrest.* This grant program provides funding to five communities starting in January 2025 and expands statewide in July 2025. Importantly, the Pretrial Success Act emphasizes investment in community-based organizations, many of which have been providing vital community-based services pretrial for years without state support.

While pretrial services historically have emphasized compliance using restrictive measures such as electronic monitoring and invasive drug tests to surveil clients, some jurisdictions are developing new approaches that emphasize support. Evidence shows that onerous pretrial surveillance can create conditions that perpetuate injustices while driving people back into jails for minor or technical violations. In fact, mandated drug testing can make people who would otherwise have been likely to succeed pretrial more likely to miss a court date or be rearrested. Jurisdictions have found success in providing voluntary, community-based services that can be tailored to each individual.

What community-based services does the Pretrial Success Act support?

As noted by Rep. Maurice West (D-IL) in an op-ed for the Rockford Register Star: “Changing a broken system is not just about changing outdated laws. It’s also about replacing them with proven solutions to help the most vulnerable members of our community and improve community safety.” To that end, the Pretrial Success Act provides the following community-based services:

• Mental health and substance use support: Many people interact with the criminal legal system for a reason related to behavioral health symptoms. Unfortunately, shortages in behavioral health resources across the country have led to long waitlists for services and left people without access to necessary care. In 2021, the Illinois behavioral health workforce only had capacity to meet an estimated 24 percent of Illinoisians’ mental health needs, with those in rural areas even less likely to have access to care. Recognizing that involuntary treatment is often associated with harmful outcomes, services provided through the Pretrial Success Act’s grants will be voluntary.
• Case management: People released pretrial are often eligible for benefits and community-based services to meet their unmet health, housing, and other social needs; but they may lack knowledge of their eligibility or how to navigate the often burdensome administrative processes of acquiring services. Case managers help people create plans tailored to their individual needs and assist them in enrolling in public benefits and accessing services such as physical and behavioral health care as well as housing and employment supports. In many cases, providing services that address people’s underlying needs can act as a protective factor against crime and violence, making people less likely to be involved.
• Child care and transportation: Most people who fail to appear in court do so not because they are trying to avoid trial but because they face social and economic barriers beyond their control that make appearing in court challenging or impossible. By providing access to child care and transportation for court appearances, Illinois is addressing two common barriers that prevent people from making their court dates.

Success stories

Community-based services are already making an impact in cities and states across the United States:

• Pretrial Diversion Project (San Francisco): The San Francisco Pretrial Diversion Project (PDP) is a community-based organization that has helped clients avoid more than 630,000 days of unnecessary pretrial incarceration over nearly 50 years of work by providing case management, therapy, and referrals to treatment, as well as other support services tailored to clients’ specific needs. PDD clients have high rates of pretrial success, with 94 percent not being rearrested within a year and 92 percent making their court appearances.
• Pretrial Release Supervision Program (St. Louis): In St. Louis, services are centered around two common unmet needs of the city’s pretrial population: 1) employment and mental health and 2) substance use disorder treatment. Pretrial staff provide a variety of services, ranging from connections to treatment to employment assistance and housing support, and 94 percent of those released pretrial are not rearrested.
• Supervised Release (New York City): With an emphasis on engagement with clients, Supervised Release (SR) partners with community-based organizations in New York City to provide services, such as case management, court reminders, and connections to voluntary services, to support people during the pretrial process and beyond. SR has been successful in meeting the core needs of clients, setting them up for future stability while also maintaining high appearance and safety rates.

Conclusion

Illinois has demonstrated that money can be eliminated from the pretrial process without jeopardizing safety and while increasing fairness. One year ago, the Pretrial Fairness Act took an “essential first step” in prioritizing safety over wealth by eliminating cash bail in all cases. Next year, Illinois will move another step closer to true pretrial justice.

* Correction, September 17, 2024: This fact sheet has been updated to cite more precise estimates of the decline in Illinois’ jail populations in the year following implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act and to accurately state the Pretrial Success Act’s investment in community-based services.