Illinois became the first state to eliminate cash bail exactly one year ago Wednesday.

The Pretrial Fairness Act meant most criminal defendants would remain free with court conditions, rather than spend time in jail until they could post bond. Supporters said the law is intended to address equity issues, while opponents feared a spike in crime.

New research paints a preliminary picture.

According to data from the Loyola Center for Criminal Justice, shared with Chicago journalists during a summit organized by advocates with the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, crime has not gone up in Illinois since the Pretrial Fairness Act was implemented.

Loyola’s David Olson and Don Stemen compared the first six months of last year with this year, and found property and violent crime down both statewide and in Cook County. Violent crime decreased by 7.59%, and property crime decreased by 14.6%.

Olson and Stemen used data collected by Illinois State Police from each local police department in Illinois through the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS).

The data pulled examines Illinois’ 102 counties, but identified some counties where the data was incomplete.

“We’re not saying that the Pretrial Fairness Act reduced crime,” Olson said. “We’re also not saying that the drop in crime might not have been larger (had the law not been in effect). But this is at least to put out that crime has not gone up.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said the preliminary results are very promising.

“What we knew was that cash bail was not an indicator of public safety, that people who were charged with violent offenses who could get access to cash were allowed to walk free, while others who were charged with nonviolent offenses would spend time in jail until they could post bond,” Foxx said.

She also noted that those who originally opposed the act attempted to use the narrative that crime would increase as a “cudgel to not support the legislation.”

However, those on the other side claim they are not seeing the same positive and promising results as Foxx.

“I think for Cook County, that’s probably all true, but for downstate Illinois, where I am, I feel that the preliminary numbers don’t fit what I foresee happening in the long term,” Clay County State’s Attorney Phillip Givens said. “And what we are failing to mention is that criminals, although they do stupid things and commit crimes, they’re also somewhat savvy, and they are aware that a new law came out where they don’t have to post bail, and they are learning what they can do and what they can’t do to remain out and not have to go back in custody.”

Givens was one of the 62 Illinois state’s attorneys who filed a lawsuit against the Pretrial Fairness Act before it was scheduled to go into effect. His initial concerns were that the act would tie the hands of judges and prosecutors, take away their control and hinder the ability to solve cases efficiently.

“Several times we’ve had people that have had multiple charges, or had previous charges where even just getting out on parole, but they’re charged with a non-detainable offense, and they have appeared in court before, but I mean they are committing a new crime while on parole,” Givens said.

When asked about the current data showing a decrease in violent crimes, Givens said he doesn’t see a difference as opposed to what the state dealt with before, and further emphasized the frustration of law enforcement officers because of the restrictions placed on their jobs.

Though Givens’ concerns are for the effects taking place in downstate Illinois, the data presented is statewide.

Olson found that in the 77 counties working through the state’s pretrial services office, when someone was arrested on a detainable offense, prosecutors did not ask judges for jail time in 43% of cases. Another 36% of nearly 9,000 cases for detention-eligible crimes resulted in detention, and in 22% of cases, prosecutors’ bid to detain an individual got rejected.

Clay County was included in the 77 counties, as seen on the Office of Statewide Pretrial Services public data dashboard. Data shows Clay County prosecutors sought detention in 86% of cases and did not seek detention in 14%.

“No one is saying that the Pretrial Fairness Act is causing crime to go down,” Foxx said. “But what we are saying is that if cash were the determinant of who was a danger to the community, and we’ve eliminated that from the equation and we’ve not seen a rise in crime, then there was not a necessity to do that.”

Proponents of the act said it addressed a bigger issue that was continuously ignored due to crime spike concerns.

“This wasn’t necessarily argued as a crime control policy,” Olson said. “It was argued as an equity policy, and it had to do with poor people spending time in jail and rich people being able to pay their way out.”

Stemen agreed, saying that the focus on crime rates overshadowed the equity benefits of the law.

“There were many people who were touting the benefits of monetary bail and why we should hold on to monetary bail,” Stemen said. “There are very few people arguing that we should go back and make people pay money to determine when they’re released. The question now is who should be detained, and that is a completely different conversation.”

Amanda Vinicky contributed to this report.