Letter Regarding Electronic Monitoring in Illinois
The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice released a letter that was sent to the Illinois Supreme Court by more than 40 academics calling to protect the electronic monitoring provisions of the Pretrial Fairness Act and to halt the expansion of this harmful technology. Read the letter below, learn more about electronic monitoring and take action to defend the Pretrial Fairness Act.
November 9, 2022
Marcia Meis Director, Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts 222 N. LaSalle St, 13th floor Chicago, IL 60601 Sent via email to mmeis@illinoiscourts.gov
Cara LeFevour Smith Director, Office of Statewide Pretrial Services Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts 222 N. LaSalle Street, 13th Floor Chicago, IL 60601 Sent via email to clefevoursmith@illinoiscourts.gov
Re: Opposition to increased use of electronic monitoring in Illinois
Dear Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts:
As researchers and legal and policy experts that have supported advocacy for pretrial justice reforms, we are elated with the passage of the Pretrial Fairness Act and the protections it secures for thousands of Illinoisans. It is critical that the end of money bond and decrease of pretrial jailing are not responded to with an increase in other forms of pretrial injustices.
Our organizations have a particular interest in the issue of electronic monitoring (EM). Electronic monitoring, when accompanied by house arrest (as is typical) is the most punitive form of pretrial release available to the courts. Our work has borne this out. We have worked with individuals on pretrial EM in Illinois and other states. We have supported people who have lost access to their children, been fired from their jobs, and been removed from their housing solely because they could not secure movement to attend an interview, go to a hospital or sign a lease. We have handled messages of distress at all times of the night and day from individuals on the monitor who have been unable to access food, medical care or respond to a family emergency because the stringent conditions of electronic monitoring held them captive in their house. In perhaps the most extreme of cases, we worked with an expectant father who was unable to attend the birth of his child because he was unable to file a request for movement at the precise time the child would be born, an obviously impossible requirement. The child arrived early, and he was unable to leave the house in time.
These losses and restrictions are imposed without justification, as a thorough review of available research has found little to no evidence that electronic monitoring improves key pretrial outcomes like court appearance or community safety. Instead, it is found to undermine pretrial success by increasing technical violations and pretrial incarceration for people who would otherwise likely succeed on pretrial release without monitoring. A wealth of evidence demonstrates that the widely used forms of EM technology are often hypersensitive and unreliable, triggering false alerts that are used to justify jailing individuals without due process for unsubstantiated alleged violations. This ultimately worsens mass incarceration and amplifies existing racial disparities. For these reasons, courts must move away from pretrial EM.
To our knowledge, the Pretrial Fairness Act is the first legislation in the US that guarantees some basic rights for individuals on pretrial electronic monitoring, and thousands of people have already benefited as a result—without compromising community safety. The spirit of the Pretrial Fairness Act focuses on reducing pretrial jailing, acknowledging that house arrest with electronic monitoring replicates many of the harms of incarceration in brick and mortar jails. When people are unable to take care of themselves or pursue positive opportunities because of electronic monitoring, their lives and families fall apart and our communities suffer. By guaranteeing people’s right to movement to carry out essential activities and mandating that the court regularly reconsider the imposition of EM, the Pretrial Fairness Act is an important first step in moving away from treating pretrial release conditions as forms of punishment.
Moving jails into people's homes through extending the use of electronic monitoring would undermine the positive impacts of the Pretrial Fairness Act. While the legislation does not address the full range of pretrial challenges, it constitutes an enormous advance. We are concerned that certain decision-makers will push back against this progress either by expanding use of electronic monitoring or falling short of implementing the mandates of the Act.
Therefore, we encourage you to promote the use of non-punitive programs as part of pretrial release and refrain from expanding the use of pretrial electronic monitoring through Illinois’ new Office of Statewide Pretrial Services. If EM is used, we implore you to ensure that the conditions of EM maximize movement and participation in family and community life, rather than converting homes into jail cells.
We would be happy to discuss this with you further. Please feel free to contact us at: james@mediajustice.org.
Sincerely,
Chelsea Barabas, PhD Candidate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sheila Bedi, Clinical Professor of Law; Director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Avalon Betts-Gaston, JD, Director, Illinois Alliance for Reentry and Justice
Julie Biehl, Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Children and Family Justice Center; Assistant Dean of Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Annalise Buth, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Herschella G. Conyers, Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Criminal & Juvenile Justice Clinic; The University of Chicago Law School
Jennifer Copp, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University
Stephen Demuth, Associate Professor of Sociology, Bowling Green State University
Premal Dharia, Executive Director, Institute to End Mass Incarceration, Harvard Law School
Colin Doyle, Associate Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Erin Eife, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Brown University
Matt Epperson, Associate Professor, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, The University of Chicago
Douglas Evans, Senior Research Associate, Institute for State and Local Governance
April Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, North Carolina State University
Alison Flaum, Clinical Professor of Law, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Lisa Frohmann, Associate Professor of Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago
Craig B. Futterman, Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Civil Rights & Police Accountability
Project; University of Chicago Law School
Adom Getachew, Assistant Professor of Political Science, and Race, Diaspora and Indigeniety, University of Chicago
Xóchitl E. Guerrero, MSW, LCSW, PhD Student, University of Illinois Chicago; Clinical Assistant Professor, Dominican University
Susila Gurusami, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law & Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago
Kasey Henricks, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
James Kilgore, Research Scholar, Center for African Studies, University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign; Media Fellow, MediaJustice
Gabriela Kirk, Senior Research Associate, Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University
Rahim Kurwa, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois Chicago
Darryl Li, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Associate Member of the Law School, University of Chicago
Shobha L. Mahadev, Clinical Professor of Law, Children and Family Justice Center, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
Reuben Jonathan Miller, PhD, Associate Professor, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice and the Department of Race, Diaspora and Indigeniety, University of Chicago; Research Professor, American Bar Foundation
Branden McLeod, Associate Professor of Social Work, University of Illinois Chicago
Oren Nimni, Litigation Director, Rights Behind Bars
Marisa Omori, Associate Professor, University of Missouri St. Louis
Joshua Page, Professor of Sociology and Law, University of Minnesota
Shawn E. Parra, PhD Student in Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago
Matt Parsons, Community Lawyer, Baltimore Action Legal Team
Tiera Rainey, Executive Director, Tucson Second Chance Community Bail Fund
Malcolm Rich, Executive Director, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts
Emmett Sanders, Researcher, MediaJustice
Sophia Sarantakos, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver
Alison Siegler, Clinical Professor of Law; Founding Director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic, University of Chicago Law School
Sandra Susan Smith, Daniel & Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice, Harvard Kennedy School
Ash Stephens, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago
Brianna Suslovic, MSW, PhD Student, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, & Practice, The University of Chicago
Robert Vargas, Associate Professor of Social Sciences; Founder and Director, UChicago Justice Project; The University of Chicago
Durrell Malik Washington, Sr., PhD Candidate, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, & Practice, The University of Chicago
Pilar Weiss, Director, Community Justice Exchange
Kate Weisburd, Associate Professor of Law, George Washington University
Erica Zunkel, Clinical Professor of Law; Associate Director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic, The University of Chicago Law School
Cc: Hon. Mary Jane Theis, Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice, sent via email to mjtheis@illinoiscourts.gov
Hon. P. Scott Neville, Jr., Illinois Supreme Court Justice and Liaison to the Pretrial Implementation Task Force, sent via email to pneville@illinoiscourts.gov
Hon. Robbin Stuckert (Ret.), Chair, Pretrial Implementation Task Force sent via email to rstuckert@illinoiscourts.gov