Someone Had to Say It

And it wasn't going to be Crimesha:

• A full year into the state’s end of cash bail, a suburban county state’s attorney says the law has been “an abject failure” for his county.

  Illinois ended cash bail statewide in September 2023 after litigation against the law was struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court. The Pretrial Fairness Act is part of the Safety, Accountability, Fairness, and Equity Today, or SAFE-T, Act.

  McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said the data in his county doesn’t show what proponents promised.

  “There was a 30% increase in crime by those on pretrial release compared to those on cash bail,” Kenneally told The Center Square.

  Last month, CWBChicago found that nearly 20% of people arrested and charged with felonies in Chicago were already on pretrial release for another pending criminal case.

Even the jail population went up in McHanry County, something advocates said wouldn't happen.

CWB also did a deep dive into the numbers here and guess what? They're lying!

• However, CWB found that the office of Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans, apparently using the same methodology as the Illinois Network for Pretrial Fairness, has been artificially understating failures to appear under cashless bail.

  Evans’ office publishes a weekly data dashboard that currently shows 87% of defendants have “not been issued a warrant for a failure to appear while on pretrial release.” It states the number means “87% [are] Compliant with Scheduled Court Dates.”

  By comparison, when cash bail ended last year, the felony compliance rate was just under 80%. So, on the surface, it appears that compliance is higher without cash bail.

  However, the numbers are not apples-to-apples.

  Under the current system, judges often must notify defendants who miss court dates by mail before a warrant can be issued.

  As a result, the number of people who fail to appear is substantially higher than the 88% that end up in warrant status. But because—like these people—they got a postcard instead of a warrant, the chief judge considers them “compliant with scheduled court dates,” even though they were not.

Which means Clerk Iris Martinez was probably telling the truth a few weeks ago.