SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Illinois is set to become the first state to eliminate money bond, after the General Assembly passed a criminal-justice reform package this week and sent it to the governor's desk.

One part is the Pretrial Fairness Act. It would set up a new system for the courts to decide when someone needs to be detained before their trial, but all others would be released while they wait without having to pay bond.

Sharone Mitchell, Jr., director of the Illinois Justice Project, said advocates with the Coalition to End Money Bond have worked closely with victims' rights organizations to ensure a balance between pretrial freedom and public safety and reduce jail populations.

"There will be times in which someone will have to be detained pretrial," Mitchell explained. "But what the Pretrial Fairness Act does is that it ensures that it's not done in a two-minute hearing or one-minute hearing, it's not done based upon whether the person has a rich uncle that has $1,000 lying around; it's done in a real focused and organized way."

Legislators removed certain controversial measures from the initial proposal, after facing opposition from law-enforcement groups and prosecutors. An end to qualified immunity for police officers, originally part of the package, did not make it to the vote.

Kevin Blumenberg, mass liberation fellow at the People's Lobby, said people detained pretrial are more likely to be pressured to take a plea deal and receive a prison sentence.

He contended whether a person can afford to post bail shouldn't be the deciding factor. He was detained before his trial when he was 16 years old.

"So when we say that people are presumed to be innocent 'til proven guilty, today is the day that that has become a reality for us," Blumenberg asserted.

Mitchell pointed to a Loyola University study which found after a Cook County judge ordered bond reform in 2017, Chicago-area residents saved $31 million in a six-month timespan.

"You really can't talk about mass incarceration, and you can't talk about wrongful convictions, without talking about the things that happen at bond court," Mitchell argued. "And we are really excited to turn those things around."

Mitchell added the majority of people putting up money for bail are Black and Brown women, and ending money bond could alleviate the financial burden that people detained pretrial and their families take on.


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Hundreds of people from across Michigan gathered in Lansing this week, urging House Speaker Joe Tate, D-Detroit and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, to advance the Second Look Sentencing Act to improve prison safety. The legislation allows people serving long sentences to have their cases reviewed for possible sentence reductions based on factors such as rehabilitation. The crowd included formerly incarcerated people who've turned their lives around and their families, victims of crime, prison staff and lawmakers.

Chuck Warpehoski, projects director with Michigan Collaborative to End Mass Incarceration, warned there is a prison staffing crisis in Michigan.

"We're seeing it in nursing, we're seeing it in child care, we're seeing it on the shop floor, we're seeing it with baristas. When it happens in a prison and people are forced to work mandatory double shifts, they're tired, they're not seeing their family -- it creates unsafe conditions for everyone," he said.

Warpehoski added they're urging lawmakers to pass the Second Look Act during this lame-duck session before they go home for the holidays.

He also pointed out the high costs of incarcerating people -- up to $48,000 per year, per person. He added that with the failed pay incentives to attract more staff, he believes it's clear a different solution is needed. Warpehoski shared some of the feedback they received.

"A lot of legislators and their staff said, hey, this makes sense -- and so it was a really, really positive response from not every office, but from a large number of offices we had meetings with," he continued.

Warpehoski stressed that Second Look legislation focuses on fairness by offering the possibility of release for individuals who have rehabilitated and are no longer a threat to society.

Advocates of criminal-justice reform warn the passage of Proposition 36 will mean a sharp reduction in funds to anti-crime initiatives. The measure raises the penalties for certain drug and theft crimes, making more of them felonies that carry jail time.

Will Matthews, a spokesperson for Californians for Safety and Justice, a nonprofit public-safety advocacy organization, said voters were fed false promises that Prop. 36 would reduce property crime by forcing more people to choose between treatment and incarceration.

"It really was a disingenuous initiative that now will result in billions of dollars being diverted away from treating addiction, treating mental illness, and helping folks coming home from a period of incarceration," he said.

Prop. 36 repeals parts of Proposition 47, which funneled the savings from reduced prison costs into programs designed to combat poverty and addiction - the root causes of crime.

Christopher Hallenbrook, a political science professor with Cal State Dominguez Hills, agrees that Prop 36 will cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars, money he says will be diverted from anti-crime initiatives.

"There's no way you can pass '36' and not put more people in jail. The more money you're spending on incarceration, the less money you're spending on other things," Hallenbrook stated. "That is definitely an accurate assessment for Prop. 36 and it seems to be one that voters decided they were OK with."

Prop. 36 was largely funded by such retail giants as Home Depot, Target and Walmart, hoping that the prospect of higher penalties would deter retail crime.


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Loretta Rush, Chief Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court, has released the 2023-24 annual report for the state's courts.

The report shows Indiana's judicial system is taking big steps to tackle the mental health crisis. The Supreme Court recently launched the Office of Behavioral Health and hired Brittany Kelly as its behavioral health specialist, making Indiana the tenth state in the country to embed a mental health professional within its judiciary.

"She's off and running. She's had hundreds of inquiries from around the state. She's meeting with judges," Rush outlined. "She's helping with things like competency evaluations, access to Medicaid, how do I get somebody who's going through dementia through the court system?"

Rush pointed out Kelly will help the courts manage the mental health and substance use issues flooding Indiana's courtrooms daily. The latest report shows more than 1 million cases passed through the courts this past fiscal year, including almost 20,000 involuntary mental health hearings and a sharp rise in protective orders for domestic violence.

Rush highlighted the strain on local courts, noting about 70% of people in jail have behavioral health issues.

"How do we make sure we have diversion programs in place? How do we make sure that the services we're ordering for people to do are the right services?" Rush asked. "We've done a lot at the national level with regard to substance abuse and mental health, realizing programs that are working."

The judiciary is working with state agencies to reform policies and address the impact of mental health issues on the system. Kelly has training in both social work and law, and helps judges connect with treatment resources to get people the support they need and keep them out of jail.


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