From the State’s Attorney:
The SAFE-T Act in McHenry County has been an abject failure. Not only has it failed to deliver on what its proponents promised, the court system has experienced the exact problems predicted by critics.
Despite this, proponents continue to obfuscate behind “lack of data,” “reduced costs to criminal defendants” (no mention is made of the increased cost to non-criminal taxpayers), and “no major increase in crime generally” (a mostly irrelevant factor in evaluating the SAFE-T Act).
In McHenry County, however, the numbers are in.
After the implementation of the SAFE-T Act, McHenry County has experienced:
- A 30% Increase in Crime by Those on Pre-Trial Release Compared With Those on Cash Bail.1
- An Increase in the Jail Population.2
- A 280% Increase in Failures to Appear (FTA).3
- A 35% Reduction in Restitution Paid to Crime Victims.4
How is it possible for the jail population to increase along with the number of crimes being committed by those on pretrial release?
Simply put, we are incarcerating the wrong people.
The SAFE-T Act was passed based on the repetition of the lie that cash bail regularly resulted in the unjust incarceration of those without the means to pay.
That was never true in McHenry County. Rather, prior to the SAFE-T Act, 97% of those charged with crimes had been released pretrial.
This incredibly high release rate occurred under the entirely reasonable cash bail system that required judges to take into consideration the ability of a defendant to pay when setting bail.
Accordingly, different bail amounts were set for different defendants, all based on their financial means.
Low-risk defendants who could not afford any bail, were routinely released on their own recognizance.
The problem with the SAFE-T Act, written by public defenders and advocates for criminals, is that it denies county judges, elected by the communities affected by the alleged crimes, the discretion to detain defendants charged with most crimes, no matter how high-risk.
Rather, in most cases, a judge has no discretion and must release the defendant.
One need not be a professor of criminology to understand that mandating judges in all circumstances to release high-risk defendants pretrial is a misguided and unreasonable policy.
A policy that proceeded from the ideology of a privileged group of advocates who dictate criminal justice legislation in Illinois overcoming common sense.
1Between September 19, 2022 and June 2, 2023, 1,234 defendants were charged with one or more Class A misdemeanor or greater offenses (i.e. Class M, X, 1, 2, 3, or 4 felony). Of these, 97 or 7.8% were charged after pretrial release with another Class A misdemeanor or greater offense during the same period. Between September 18, 2023 and May 31, 2024, 1,124 unique defendants were charged with one or more Class A misdemeanor or greater offenses. Of these 114 or 10.1% of defendants were charged after pretrial release with another Class A or greater offense during the same period.
2On September 17, 2023, 204 McHenry defendants were detained in the McHenry County Jail. On September 15, 2024, 216 defendants were detained in the McHenry County Jail.
3Between March 17, 2023 and September 17, 2023, the court issued 1,055 FTA warrants and 1,433 FTA summonses. Between September 18, 2023 and March 18, 2024, the court issued 616 FTA warrants and 8,845 FTA summons. This dramatic increase is a significant cost to the court system. Not only has the court expended resources needlessly gathering and preparing for the court appearances of no-show defendants, it must also expend resources finding the defendant, notifying them of the failure to appear, and (in some cases) detaining them.
4Between September 19, 2022 and June 2, 2023, $342,160.34 was paid in restitution to crime victims. Between September 18, 2023 and May 31, 2024, $254,410.99 was paid to crime victims. Since much of restitution to crime victims came/comes from the 10% cash bail deposit, reduction in restitution to crime victims is only expected to continue to decrease. Much of the $254,410.99 was paid by the bail deposit from defendants who were charged during the cash bail period (i.e. before September 17, 2023), but whose case was resolved during the SAFE-T Act period (i.e. after September 17, 2023).
