It’s a social experiment with people lining up to say, “I told ya so.” And it probably won’t take very long to be proved a disaster.
The state of Illinois has a radical Democratic legislature and a radical governor. They don’t mind playing mad social scientist and experimenting with the citizens who live in the Land of Lincoln by exposing them to the predations of criminals.
For good or ill, Illinois is about to begin an experiment on Monday with the concept of “cashless bail.” That means that when the accused comes before a judge, a decision will be made not about how much bail will be set for the perp but rather whether the crime they are accused of is serious enough to place the accused in jail until trial or release them.
What could go wrong?
“It’s a wait and see at this point to see how this plays out,” said Palos Park police Chief Joe Miller. “The decision has been made. My job is to make sure that our people, when they go out in the field, have all the tools they need to do the job.”
Anyone charged with a forcible felony, which includes first- and second-degree murder, predatory criminal sexual assault, robbery, burglary and arson, or poses a real and present threat to himself or herself or others will be taken into custody, Miller said.
However, anyone committing traffic violations, class B and C misdemeanors, petty business offenses or local ordinance violations will be cited and released, Miller said.
As officers interact with people suspected of the lower level offenses, if the person has proper identification, doesn’t pose a threat and doesn’t have an obvious medical or mental health issue, then the officer should issue a citation, according to the Pretrial Fairness Act, the measure of the SAFE-T Act that addressed cashless bail.
Even career criminals can be released if they haven’t committed a violent offense. One can imagine a criminal racking up crimes and being caught time and again only to be released without bail.
Hell, it’s happened already. New York’s short-lived experiment with low or no bail for most offenses resulted in thousands of criminals being re-arrested for violent felonies.
In the first full year after New York banned detaining people on a vast number of criminal charges, there were nearly 100,000 cases in which adults were released after being charged with offenses for which judges previously could have set bail or ordered them held in custody.
Among the cases, those released went on to be arrested again for alleged violent felony charges about 4 percent of the time, according to a Times Union analysis of newly published state data. In about 1 percent of the cases, the individuals released were arrested again on violent felony charges involving a firearm while their initial cases were pending.
Why should Illinois be any different?
It won’t be, of course. And since there isn’t even going to be token bail for criminals, even more perps are going to be set free to prey on others.
In our overburdened court system, how many of these cases are going to slip through the cracks?
The law requires prosecutors to file a detention petition before a judge can order an accused person into custody. In certain cases, if a prosecutor fails to file a petition, a judge may ask what conditions the assistant state’s attorney requests the court impose to protect communities and ensure the defendant doesn’t flee.
“The way the statute is worded, if the state does not file a petition to detain, judges don’t have the authority to override them,” she said.
The burden of bail falls most heavily on “marginalized communities,” we’re told. What does the color of their skin matter? This is not an issue of race, no matter how hard criminal justice advocates want to argue. Race is a distraction from the reality that there are people who cannot be allowed to continue their lives of crime. And it’s a virtual certainty that innocent people are going to die because this misguided law is now on the books.
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