Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice Letter Opposing SB4228

October 20, 2022

Re: Opposition to SB4228, SAFE-T Act Trailer Bill

Dear members of the Illinois General Assembly:

We the undersigned organizations write to ask you to oppose SB4228, the SAFE-T Act trailer bill written by the Illinois State's Attorneys Association. The Pretrial Fairness Act was designed to protect an individual’s right to the presumption of innocence and to address racial disparities in our pretrial system. The changes included in SB4228, however, would deny all Illinoisians those fundamental constitutional rights. If passed, the amendments in SB4228 would further fuel mass incarceration, worsen racial disparities, and create a pretrial system that is far worse than the one in place today.

By passing the Pretrial Fairness Act, the Illinois legislature took a significant step towards addressing the harm pretrial incarceration has caused communities across our state. For decades, Illinoisans have lost jobs, housing, and even custody of their children—not because they were a danger to the community, but simply because they couldn’t afford to pay a money bond. The Pretrial Fairness Act rectified this by ending the state’s use of money bond, ensuring that safety, not the amount of money in a persons’ savings account, determines who is jailed and who is released pretrial. These changes reflected the recommendations of the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Pretrial Practices and were supported by more than 100 advocacy, community and policy organizations, including most notably a number of groups representing the survivors of domestic, gun, and sexual violence.

The Pretrial Fairness Act was passed in response to the historic, nationwide protests following the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and represents an important step in addressing the pervasive racial injustice in our criminal legal system. The changes proposed in SB4228 are in complete opposition to the spirit of those calls for racial justice and criminal legal system reform and were developed primarily by prosecutors.

The Pretrial Fairness Act, in contrast, was developed with input from legal experts, advocates, and community organizers. It was a product of nine public hearings, 30 hours of testimony, and countless meetings with law enforcement, community members, and advocates. For the last several years, however, the State’s Attorneys Association has fought tooth and nail against pretrial justice reforms. The prosecutors’ association has not productively engaged in implementation conversations to ensure the safe and effective implementation of the law. On the heels of a misinformation and fear-mongering campaign spread by right-wing operatives like Dan Proft, Jeanne Ives, and Dick Uihlein, the State's Attorneys Association is exploiting this moment immediately before an election and attempting to use the trailer bill process to increase their power to jail vulnerable Illinoisans. This is not a good faith effort to improve the law. It is, instead, an attempt to completely gut the law by prosecutors who oppose—and have always opposed—efforts to reduce the harm caused by wealth-based jailing in our state.

Perhaps most egregiously, SB4228 attempts to institute an unconstitutional presumption of jail for certain people, who would then be forced to prove their innocence before trial instead of having the prosecution present convincing evidence of their guilt. This clearly unconstitutional proposal is ironic given the baseless lawsuits from these same prosecutors claiming the Pretrial Fairness Act is itself unconstitutional. These lawsuits also do not necessarily represent the views of the majority of Illinoisans; State’s Attorneys representing counties that make up 46% of Illinois’ population support the Pretrial Fairness Act, and State’s Attorneys representing 58% of Illinois’ population support eliminating money bond. Many of the State’s Attorneys leading opposition to the Pretrial Fairness Act, in contrast, represent counties where Black residents make up at most 14% of the population, but up to half of the people admitted to their jails.

Specifically:

Correcting these glaring racial disparities is one of the primary reasons the Pretrial Fairness Act was passed.

The Pretrial Fairness Act has never been just about ending money bond. It was signed into law to reduce the devastation that pretrial incarceration has caused low-income communities and communities of color across Illinois. It is absolutely essential that any future amendments to the Pretrial Fairness Act are made in the same spirit in which it was written. Using this historic legislation as a vehicle for incarcerating more Black and brown people would be a slap in the face to the communities that have suffered under the injustices of the money bond system for decades.

Protecting everyone's access to pretrial freedom, regardless of income, is a significant step toward decreasing the number of people languishing in Illinois’ 92 county jails. The Pretrial Fairness Act marked a critical step forward for the state. Illinois has now positioned itself as a leader in efforts to meaningfully address the racial and economic injustices that wealth-based jailing has caused communities for decades. We have a duty to honor the historic moment when Illinois made that significant step. This progress toward racial and economic justice cannot be undone before the Pretrial Fairness Act even goes into effect. For this reason, we ask you to oppose the amendments contained in SB4228. Please do not hesitate to contact us at info@endmoneybond.org with any questions or for additional information.

Sincerely,

The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice and more than 100 additional organizations in support of the Pretrial Fairness Act:

#LetUsBreathe Collective

A Just Harvest

A Way Inn

Access Living

ACLU of Springfield

ACLU of Champaign County

ACLU of Illinois

Alliance for Safety and Justice

Asian Americans Advancing Justice

Chicago

Believers Bail Out

Black Justice Project

Black Light Fellowship

Black Lives Matter

Bloomington-Normal

Black Lives Matter Springfield

Blackroots Alliance

Bloomington-Normal Democratic

Socialists of America

Brighton Park Neighborhood

Council

Cabrini Green Legal Aid

CAIR-Chicago

Cannabis Equity Illinois Coalition

Carbondale Spring

Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic

Center

Champaign County Bailout Coalition

Champaign-Urbana Courtwatch

Champaign-Urbana Democratic

Socialists of America

Champaign-Urbana Showing Up for

Racial Justice (CU-SURJ)

Change Peoria

Channing-Murray Foundation

Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

Chicago Community Bond Fund

Chicago Democratic Socialists of

America

Chicago Lawyers' Committee for

Civil Rights

Chicago Jobs Council

Chicago Recovery Alliance

Chicago Teachers Union

Chicago Torture Justice Center

Chicago Votes

Circles & Ciphers

Clergy for a New Drug Policy

Coalition to Reduce Recidivism in

Lake County

Communities United

Community Renewal Society

Concerned Citizens of Precinct 12

Covenant United Church of Christ

Criminal Justice Task Force at First

Unitarian Church of Chicago

Elliott Counseling Group

Equity And Transformation (EAT)

Faith Coalition for the Common

Good

First Defense Legal Aid

First United Methodist Church, Oak

Park

Gamaliel Network

Gamaliel of Illinois and Iowa (GOII)

Growing Home, Inc.

HANA Center

Human Opposition Movement for

Equality

Illinois Alliance for Reentry and

Justice

Illinois Muslim Civic Coalition

Illinois National Organization for

Women (NOW)

Illinois Prison Project

Illinois Prisoner Rights Coalition

Illinois Religious Action Center of

Reform Judaism (RAC-IL)

Inner-City Muslim Action Network

Jewish Council on Urban Affairs

John Howard Association of Illinois

JOLT Harm Reduction

Justice and Witness Ministry of

Chicago Metropolitan

Association – Illinois Conference

United Church of Christ

Law Enforcement Action Partnership

Lawndale Christian Legal Center

Legal Council for Health Justice

Liberation Library

Live Free Chicago

Live Free Illinois

Loevy & Loevy Attorneys at Law

Mandel Legal Aid Clinic at the

University of Chicago Law

School

Masjid Al-Taqwa

MediaJustice

Metropolitan Tenants Organization

NAMI Illinois

NAMI South Suburbs of Chicago

National Lawyers Guild Chicago

Nehemiah Trinity Rising

Nikkei Uprising

Northside Transformative Law

Center

ONE Northside

Parole Illinois

Party for Socialism and Liberation

Champaign-Urbana

People's Action

The People's Lobby

Precious Blood Ministry of

Reconciliation

Quad Cities Democratic Socialists of

America

Quad Cities Interfaith

Resistor Sisterhood

Restore Justice

Revolution Workshop

Rights and Restoration Law Group

Rockford Urban Ministries

Sanctuary of the People, University

of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

SEIU Healthcare Illinois

She Votes Illinois

Showing Up for Racial Justice

(SURJ) - Chicago

Shriver Center on Poverty Law

Silver Law Office PC

Smart Decarceration Project

Southsiders Organized for Unity and

Liberation (SOUL)

St Francis Xavier Metro-East Small

Faith Community

Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Illinois

The Graduate Employees'

Organization at University of

Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Trinity United Church of Christ

Unitarian Universalist Advocacy

Network of Illinois

Unitarian Universalist Prison

Ministry of Illinois

United Congregations of the

Metro-East

United Working Families

Uptown People's Law Center

Wayman AME Church

Westside Justice Center

West Suburban IL DSA

WIN Recovery

Women's Justice Institute (WJI)

Women's March Rockford

Workers Center for Racial Justice

YWCA Elgin

YWCA McLean County

YWCA of the University of Illinois

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