Illinois on Monday will become the first state to fully abolish cash bail through an act of the legislature — a major criminal justice overhaul spurred by the advocacy of a progressive faction of the Democratic Party that’s grown increasingly powerful in recent years.
Criminal Justice
The long-anticipated elimination of cash bail officially takes effect in Illinois Monday, following extensive delays, legal challenges and pushback from critics who sought to keep the existing system in place.
The unanimous vote by the interim Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability caps an effort that began in 2017 to stop the Chicago Police Department from using databases to track Chicagoans they believe to be in a gang.
It is unclear what prompted the decision to reconsider the proposed settlement after the Chicago City Council rejected it in July on a vote of 22-26.
Illinois is set to become the first state in the nation to entirely eliminate cash bail. This is after the Illinois Supreme Court upheld a contentious portion of the criminal justice reform law known as the SAFE-T Act.
A new law in Illinois aims to give former inmates a better chance to succeed outside of prison and reduce the likelihood that they’ll be sent back.
The city and its lawyers will now have to convince a jury that two officers did nothing wrong when they fired 16 shots at Darius Cole-Garrit, 21, at 9:30 p.m. Aug. 19, 2014, after a brief foot chase on the city's Far South Side.
The 22-26 vote represented a rare, if not unprecedented, decision by the City Council to reject a proposed settlement after it was endorsed by the Finance Committee and the mayor.
In a 5-2 ruling, with Republican justices dissenting, the state's highest court found that the elimination of cash bail is constitutional and will take effect statewide beginning Sept. 18, overturning a lower court ruling that had put that implementation on hold and handing Gov. J.B. Pritzker a major victory.
The City Council’s Finance Committee voted 10-9 to endorse the settlement, which now heads to a final vote at the full City Council meeting. In all, the City Council will consider paying $8.5 million to resolve four lawsuits that allege a wide range of police misconduct.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on Monday released her office’s “Do Not Call List” — which she said includes a collection of “disreputable” law enforcement officers who have “propelled Cook County’s reputation as the wrongful conviction capital of the country.”
On Monday, WTTW News launches a new initiative, “A Safer City.” In an effort to help facilitate the complicated but necessary conversation around violence, we aim to explore violence in all its forms with depth and nuance.
In all, the payments approved Wednesday are equivalent to 11% of the city’s annual $82 million budget to cover the cost of police misconduct lawsuits.
More than half of IDOC inmates serving a life sentence are 55 or older. Caring for an aging prison population is a costly endeavor, advocates say, and the health care elderly prisoners do receive often falls short. That’s why some are calling for a new parole system.
In 1978, Illinois shifted from an indeterminate to a determinate sentencing system — effectively eliminating parole as most people are familiar with it. Now some advocates are calling for changes to allow inmates over 55 the chance to be paroled.
During his time as U.S. Attorney, Lausch oversaw numerous high-profile investigations in Chicago, among them, the indictments of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on racketeering and bribery charges and longtime Chicago Ald. Ed. Burke.
