In January, the Illinois General Assembly passed House Bill 3653, the Illinois Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity—Today (SAFE-T) Act. The sweeping 764-page legislation contains substantial reforms in the areas of policing, pretrial detention, and corrections. Perhaps most notably, the Illinois SAFE-T Act will soon make Illinois the first state to completely abolish cash bail.
With the law set to take full effect in less than three months, several Illinois officials have publicly criticized the bill. Illinois State House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, for example, called the elimination of cash bail “a horrible slap in the face to victims and neighborhoods desperately
