Illinois Bail Reform Makes Justice System More Equitable and Fair

By: Laurie Garduque

Bail Data Analysis Pretrial and Bail September 18, 2023

The justice system in MacArthur’s home state of Illinois is set to become more just, equitable, and fair without increasing crime, thanks to the Pretrial Fairness Act. While many people and organizations worked towards this landmark reform bill for years, MacArthur’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) helped support non-partisan analysis and research and education around key parts of the bill.

The Pretrial Fairness Act makes a range of reforms to the criminal justice system in Illinois. One of the most significant changes is eliminating cash bail and redesigning the pretrial process and decision-making. Illinois is the first state in the nation to ban cash bail entirely.

The end of cash bail in Illinois, which goes into effect September 18, 2023, will reduce the discriminatory impact of the justice system in the state. In the past, cash bail left people in jail who could not afford to pay bond, while those with greater access to resources were released and able to return to their families, jobs, and homes.

Under the new system, people are released from jail unless the State’s Attorney initiates a petition for detention, based on the risk of a defendant committing another crime or fleeing prosecution. When this occurs, a hearing is held, evidence of risk to the community is presented and evaluated, and the judge determines if pretrial release will be granted. By removing the role of money and wealth from pretrial release, the Pretrial Fairness Act will promote greater equity and fairness, particularly for people with lower income and members of historically marginalized communities in Illinois.

Analyzing the Impact of Local Reforms

While support for ending cash bail had been building for a while, some important steps happened in Cook County under their MacArthur SJC grant. The Cook County’s Office of the Chief Judge issued a general order in 2017, designed to increase pretrial release without cash bail and increase the affordability of cash bail when used as a condition of release. The chief judge received collaborative support and buy-in from other system and community stakeholders to implement these changes.

And, because SJC prioritizes data transparency and analysis, the Office of the Chief Judge shared their data with another MacArthur grantee for analysis: Loyola University of Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice.

Loyola deserves credit for its efforts to educate journalists, government officials, and the public about how bail reform impacts community safety. Their analysis of bail reform in Cook County since 2017 traced people who had been released pretrial. What they found was invaluable to the debate around bail reform in the Pretrial Fairness Act: they learned that there was no change in the rate at which defendants were charged with new crimes in the six months or year following their release, even though the number of people released during this period increased.

Data showed that bail reform in Cook County had no effect on new criminal activity or crime. This was based on analysis performed by Loyola University Chicago under a grant from MacArthur.

Loyola’s Professors Don Stemen and David Olson concluded that Cook County’s decreased use of cash bail had no impact on new criminal activity or crime. Overall crime rates in Chicago, including violent crime rates, were not any higher after the implementation of bail reform. The analysis and findings in Cook County resembled other areas where similar bail reform efforts have been undertaken, such as New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.

The analysis also showed that releasing people while they await trial does not make communities less safe. Monetary bail, however, does impose a burden on the individuals and families who are least able to afford it. Like bail reform efforts in other communities, Cook County’s initiative demonstrated that it is possible to decrease the use of monetary bail and pretrial detention–lessening the financial, physical, and psychological harms that come with pretrial detention–without affecting criminal activity or crime rates.

Without Cook County modeling bail reform for the rest of Illinois and Loyola analyzing and sharing the results, Illinois may not have had the support to end cash bail statewide.

Implementing reforms at the local level, analyzing the results, and sharing learnings is at the heart of SJC as we try to encourage the spread of reform across the country. The Pretrial Fairness Act, a first-in-the nation law, took lessons from a local community and used it to inform smart reform decisions at the state level. This shows exactly the type of momentum the Safety and Justice Challenge was designed to push forward, and we know it will have a positive impact on people’s lives, even as there is more work to be done.

 

What Has Changed in The Three Years Since George Floyd’s Death?

By: Chandra Tyler, Wilford Pinkney Jr., Rev. Dr. Michelle Anne Simmons, Lisa Varon

Community Engagement Featured Jurisdictions Racial Disparities May 24, 2023

It has been three years since George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020. Mr. Floyd’s murder energized an international movement for racial justice with many pledging to change the role of law enforcement and more.

But what has changed? We asked individuals involved with the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) to reflect on the landscape for criminal justice reform.

Clockwise from top left: Chandra Tyler, Safety and Justice Challenge Equity Inclusion Consultant for Mecklenburg County; Wilford Pinkney Jr., Director of the Office of Violence Prevention at the City of St. Louis; Rev. Dr. Michelle Anne Simmons, Founder and Executive Director of Why Not Prosper, Inc.; Lisa Varon, Deputy Director of the Office of Criminal Justice at the City of Philadelphia.

Chandra Tyler, Safety and Justice Challenge Equity Inclusion Consultant for Mecklenburg County

As we approach the three-year anniversary of George Floyd’s brutal death, I sit in deep reflection with both heaviness and hope. The devastating tragedy on May 25, 2020, which ignited an enormous blaze of protests, policy changes and social movements, appeared to be the long overdue awakening that so many fought and prayed for. Fast-forward to present day. America’s sense of urgency and progressive efforts has slowly lost its fire.

“It feels more like a Superbowl commercial. It came and it went,” Gemini Boyd, a member of the Mecklenburg County Community Engagement Task Group recently told me.

Though disappointing, these are the moments that remind us why we continue this race. Mecklenburg County Criminal Justice Community Engagement Task Group is just getting started. With intentionality and vision, we are mending the relationships between community and systems, pouring into our youth, and identifying gaps and resources needed to build a viable, sustainable, and equitable greater Mecklenburg County community. Through our 3 E’s: Engagement, Education, and Empowerment, our mission is to lead with collaboration and improve policy and practice changes in the criminal justice system. In honor of George Floyd and countless others, we press on. The marathon continues!

Wilford Pinkney Jr., Director of the Office of Violence Prevention at the City of St. Louis

The murder of George Floyd was a catalyzing moment. It created a window of opportunity, but sustaining the momentum is the challenge. The key to sustaining reform is collaboration, a comprehensive approach and sustainable infrastructure.

Since 2020, St. Louis has enacted numerous policies related to reimagining public safety. We did not have to look far for solutions. Numerous reports were published in the last nine years that created a comprehensive picture and outline for a strategic focus. The reports promoted collaboration and pointed to the need for a comprehensive approach to address existing inequities in order to create safe and healthy communities. The challenge was not ideas; it was action. Collaborations were created in 2020 that started the process of better aligning resources and redesigning systems, structures, and policies. We started building the infrastructure for a new system of public safety.

In 2021 Tishaura Jones was elected mayor on a platform of using national models of public safety and rejecting the false choice between being “tough” on crime and addressing the root causes of violence. This approach garnered support from diverse stakeholders ranging from the elected leaders and community organizations to residents in the cities most impacted neighborhoods. Under Mayor Jones’ leadership the Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) was created by ordinance and seeded with ten million dollars which ensures it is a permanent part of the city’s government structure.

The mayor’s comprehensive approach to public safety also includes policies aimed at designing safer streets, offering down payment assistance and guaranteed basic income to low-income residents, and year-round jobs for youth. St. Louis has the model for sustaining reform, a committed chief executive, a strategic focus, support from a diverse group of stakeholders, and sustainable strategies.

Rev. Dr. Michelle Anne Simmons, Founder and Executive Director of Why Not Prosper, Inc.

George Floyd’s death brought people’s awareness of racism back to life. People have a new lens on since it happened, and it’s still an intense change in how we are all looking at the world. There needs to be a differentiation between the understanding of racism and this focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training, though, because it’s different. The city of Philadelphia has done a lot to intentionally focus on DEI. And funding has shifted because of it. But there does need to be that deep commitment to focusing on racism.

In Philadelphia, specifically, the advocates and the organizers are taking no stuff. We’ve got commissions for jail, the police, parole, the prisons, and probation. Because the funding is there and people are sick and tired of the historical racism, all those things are coming together. And you can’t miss out on the anti-violence work either. People are more aware of things now. I feel our justice partners are coming around. They’re used to the same old systems. But they’re starting to pull back the curtain on racism and realize how they can change things. They’re just beginning to pull the curtain apart and say, “Now let me see what this is about, and how I might help.”

Lisa Varon, Deputy Director of the Office of Criminal Justice at the City of Philadelphia

In the three years since the murder of George Floyd, there has been a shift to focus on community strength instead of community suffering. In Philadelphia, an innovative sustainability plan is in place to bring in more meaningful community involvement and to continuously engage justice stakeholders in actionable reform efforts. To date, the city of Philadelphia has made an annual commitment north of two million dollars in the General Fund to support a wide range of initiatives and related personnel, that supplement the series of investments made through SJC. This work has three major components: experiential learning opportunities for criminal legal system stakeholders, several capstone-focused workgroups (all with a racial equity focus), and the eventual merging with the county Community Justice Advisory Board (CJAB). 

The experiential learning opportunities are an imaginative way of breaking down some of the silos that exist in the various criminal legal systems sectors. The learning opportunities look like robust pieces of training in racial equity and implementing reforms, site visits to local community-based organizations, and chances to explore the criminal legal system by learning how people travel through the legal system and identifying where people are most likely to get caught up in the system. 

As previously mentioned, sustainability efforts in Philadelphia have already begun. There are five SJC-focused workgroups that are continuing to propel this work forward: jail reduction strategy, data, community engagement/ racial and ethnic disparities, pretrial, and the common pleas case processing workgroups. All these groups have two things in common: dedication to the sustainability of promising practices and a commitment to have racial equity built into the reforms the groups hope to produce.  

Lastly, when we think of how far we have come in criminal legal system reform in the three years since the death of George Floyd, the most important thing to do is look forward. The work of the SJC will only be ending in name in Philadelphia. Strategic workgroups will continue to convene through the Philadelphia CJAB with the expectation that they will produce actionable recommendations for change in the local system. In addition, we are maintaining our commitment to bring the necessary City resources to sustain these efforts and outcomes as a long-term investment strategy in our community.

Issue Brief

Costs Data Analysis Immigration May 23, 2023

Immigration Enforcement Policies and Detainer Trends in SJC Sites

UCI School of Sociology: Department of Criminology, Law and Society

The Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) was launched by the MacArthur Foundation in 2015 to assist local criminal justice systems in reducing their jail populations and advancing racial equity. To date, MacArthur has supported a total of 57 cities and counties1, which comprise a national network of local criminal justice systems committed to reducing the footprint of the justice system. While ameliorating disparities and social inequalities permeate recent justice policies, these efforts coincide with a rise in anti-Latino/a rhetoric and the evolution of anti-immigration measures. Anti- Latino/a rhetoric associated with anti-immigrant sentiment is not new; in fact, scholars have noted that historically, racial scripts of Mexicans and Mexican Americans living in the United States have included depictions of noncitizens and individuals undeserving of resources (Molina, 2014). Historically, immigration policy has fluctuated in response to labor demand and anti-immigrant sentiment (e.g., Molina, 2014; Massey, 2009). Most recently, there has been a devolution of federal immigration enforcement to localities, which has led to anti-immigration campaigns and the introduction of approximately 1,500 local anti-immigration ordinances in state and local legislatures (Koulish, 2010, p.138-139). Secure Communities, an example of immigration devolution, was a 2008-to-20212 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initiative requiring the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to share fingerprints with DHS to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify undocumented immigrants. The 287 (g) agreements establish a partnership with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal agencies to remove undocumented individuals.3 Additionally, traffic violations can also be counted as crimes for the purpose of removal (Abrego, Coleman, Martinez, Menjivar, & Slack, 2017). Advocates and academics have recently documented how 287(g) agreements have increased policing in Latino/a neighborhoods and how traffic enforcement is used to investigate legal status (Coleman & Kocher, 2019). Equally concerning is the fact that the devolution of immigration enforcement to interior enforcement has spillover effects on all Latino/as (Aranda, Menjivar, & Donato, 2014).

Robust immigration enforcement by local, state, and federal authorities is currently the backdrop of criminal justice reform efforts. Immigration policies can influence how local law enforcement engages with undocumented populations, which may include Latino/a communities. Immigration enforcement and local-federal cooperation can result in an increase in arrests and detainers. A detainer is an immigration hold request that allows ICE to remove undocumented individuals from federal, state, or local custody. During the Trump Administration, the number of immigration arrests increased from a total of 30,028 in 2016 to 41,328 in 20174 and detainers increased from 85,720 in 2016 to 142,474 in 2017 (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse). Moreover, anti-immigrant policies persist despite overwhelming evidence that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans and that communities with a higher proportion of immigrants have lower crime rates (National Academy of Sciences, 2015; Ousey & Kubrin, 2018; Zatz & Rodriguez, 2015).

Report

Racial Disparities March 8, 2023

Exploring Latino/a Representation in Local Criminal Justice Systems: A Review of Data Collection Practices and Systems-Involvement

Nancy Rodriguez and Rebecca Tublitz

Today, just under one in five people in the U.S. self-identify as being of Latino origin. Yet, remarkably, despite the size and diversity of the Latino population in the U.S., we do not know how many Hispanic and Latino people are arrested. That's because we are still not collecting the data in enough detail. The U.S. has simply never paid close enough attention to the experience of Latino people in our criminal justice system. A new report seeks to change that. The report, "Exploring Latino/a Representation in Local Criminal Justice Systems: A Review of Data Collection Practices and Systems-Involvement", finds that Latino and White rates of justice involvement are similar. Often, the rates for Latinos are lower than those of Whites. But these findings could be the result of the inaccurate representation of Latinos in criminal justice data. This report should be the first of many to take a comprehensive look at this jail population. Its findings will help us develop much-needed reforms to the system and further racial equity.

Reflections on Power During Black History Month

By: Gordon Goodwin, Alex Frank

Community Engagement Racial Disparities February 21, 2023

This past November, during our bi-annual Facing Race Conference, community organizer Sendolo Diaminah–Co-Director and Founder of the Carolina Federation–made the following statement: “We have power, we want more, and we want to be responsible with it and be accountable to an ethic.” This bold statement was shared to challenge the audience of 3,000 racial justice advocates to “release our fear of power”, while elevating the importance of “being responsible with power”.

We offer this in the spirit of deep reflection this Black History month. We at Race Forward and the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE) believe in the audacious dream of a multi-racial democracy. We envision a world without prisons, and one in which people of color thrive with power and purpose. But we have a long way to go.

In GARE, we support a network of over 400 city, state, regional jurisdictions, and state departments committed to advancing racial equity. And as we know, the work to advance racial equity requires disrupting and shifting power to the people most harmed and impacted by systemic racism. Within the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) community, this often means letting go, making space, and centering the expertise of system-impacted people and frontline staff, while investing in infrastructure for community-led government accountability.

On the heels of Black History Month, our team will be hosting the SJC Racial Equity Cohort sites–Cook County, Pima County, Philadelphia, and New Orleans–in Montgomery, Alabama, on the Indigenous land of the Muscogee people, as the first of a three-part Learning Exchange Retreat series. We are gathering there to hold space, build solidarity, and deepen our collective learning about our history of colonization, genocide, enslavement, and mass incarceration, in order to support the Focused Racial Equity Cohort Sites’ work in that social, historical, and political analysis.

We will be joined by community leaders, people who have been harmed by the justice system, and government leaders seeking to make change from the inside. Preparing for this event reminds us of the generational trauma of our people, and the impact of that trauma today. But we do not want to use this platform to focus on trauma. Instead, let us center generational resilience.

Generational resilience lives in every cell of our bodies. It surfaces when we cook, share a meal, listen to music, soak our feet, dance, laugh, and cry. While generational resilience is a personal experience, it is also a political expression. We are reminded of Shaun Ginwright, an author, activist, and professor in the Africana Studies Department at San Francisco State University, and his writing about this: “Healing centered engagement is explicitly political, rather than clinical,” he writes. “When people advocate for policies and opportunities that address causes of trauma, such as lack of access to mental health, these activities contribute to a sense of purpose, power and control over life situations.”

Earlier this month, we all witnessed Tyre Nichols killing at the hands of Memphis, Tennessee law enforcement as a result of being severely beaten and left uncared for. We, along with others across the country, grieve for Tyre’s family and his community which continues to recount how they have been terrorized by law enforcement. Public safety requires public trust; but the history of law enforcement was not built on trust, it was built on White supremacist “slave patrols” and a “law and order” paradigm that continues to haunt Black and Indigenous People of Color today.

Every day across the country, law enforcement agencies welcome a new cadre of officers who swear an oath not to a Governor, or a legislature, a Police Chief, Commissioner, or a political party, but to the United States Constitution. Yet, every year, thousands of Black and Indigenous People of Color lose their lives at the hands of law enforcement.

We cannot train or program our way out of this human rights crisis. We need to disrupt and shift power. What would it look like, and feel like, to shift power? To truly listen to and follow the leadership of the people most harmed by police brutality? To center our generational resilience? And in the words of Sendolo Diaminah, to “release our fear of power” while building our capacity to “be responsible with power”?