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Campaign Case Studies

There are a number of jurisdictions that have attempted to address the issues of pretrial detention, cash bail, and conditions of release such as electronic monitoring. Here we present some details of two cases: the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act and the Bail Elimination Act of 2019 in New York. 

Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act

The Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act was signed into law in February of 2021. The Act was the result of more than five years of grassroots organizing in Chicago and across the state. Cook County, where Chicago is located, had one of the largest and most punitive pretrial EM programs in the country with many people on 24/7 lockdown. While the act addresses a full range of pretrial issues, the advocates had a clear cut position on electronic monitoring-that it was a form of incarceration, that no one who was released pretrial should be on a monitor and that resources should be reallocated to effective programs outside the authority of the state instead of being used to pay for EM. For a broad overview and assessment of the campaign for the Act, see On the Road to Freedom, pages 55-60.

Here are some key points to draw from the campaign:

• While the campaign to end pretrial detention and end money bonds began largely as a project of the abolitionist Chicago Community Bond Fund, the Fund saw the need to draw in a broader spectrum of organizations which became the Coalition to End Money Bond. The coalition included a range of advocates and organizations with varying political perspectives but with the common aim of eliminating cash bonds. Eventually, they built a statewide network and held meetings across the state with advocates and impacted people. 
• The Bond Fund did a deep study of pretrial electronic monitoring in Cook County (where Chicago is located). They published their findings in a report in 2017.  They included experts from outside their organization to shed light on electronic monitoring. 
• The Bond Fund and the Coalition shared stories of impacted people like Lavette Mayes, Timothy Williams, and Rashanti McShane. They shared these stories through social media as well as in live events. These helped mobilize popular support for opposing EM.
• Coalition members spent hundreds of hours engaging state legislators and advocates with a consistent message-end money bond, with no punitive conditions for those released pretrial. They also spent hundreds of hours in meetings to develop their strategy and plans of action.
• In the end, the bill passed, making Illinois the first state in the US to ban money bonds.
• Supporters of the bill were not able to gain support for the full elimination of pretrial electronic monitoring. They settled on a compromise that guaranteed everyone on pretrial monitoring movement from their house a minimum of two days a week. The bill also stipulated that the court must hold a full-fledged hearing to place someone on pretrial electronic monitoring and if they want to hold them on that monitor for more than 60 days, they must hold another hearing to extend the EM. Previously, there were no court hearings and a judge could just issue an order. 

Their campaign raised two important issues:

• Often, the issue of electronic monitoring is linked to other issues like pretrial release, cash bail, immigrant rights, youth justice, or conditions of parole. EM may not be the main issue but it should not be forgotten or simply accepted without qualification as a necessary compromise.
• If you support an abolitionist perspective, you need to be clear on what the overall implications of a legislative or policy measure you are supporting are.  Often asking some key questions about the reform will help you decide. Here, we summarize four key questions suggested by the abolitionist organization Critical Resistance in their document On The Road to Freedom, in assessing legislation or policy:
  1. Does it weaken the system’s power or means to jail, surveil, monitor, control, or otherwise punish people?
  2. Does the reform challenge the size, scope, resources, or funding of the prison-industrial complex?
  3. Does the reform maintain protections for everyone? (this means not penalizing one group further while advancing another-an example would be eliminating EM for people with non-violent charges and refusing release for anyone with a charge categorized as violent).
  4. Does the reform shrink parts of the prison-industrial complex by reducing budgets and/or the power of those who drive and benefit from incarceration?

New York Bail Elimination Act of 2019

New York passed bail reform legislation in 2019, through the efforts of grassroots organizations as well as advocates and elected officials. A big part of the push for bail reform was the case of Kalief Browder. He spent three years in Rikers Island jail because he could not afford the bail of $3,000 set for his alleged theft of a backpack. Ultimately, his case was dismissed but the trauma of his jail experience triggered his suicide in 2019. The legislation did eliminate cash bail, but only for a small portion of those in pretrial detention-those with misdemeanor charges and those with certain non-violent felonies. The bail reform took away the discretionary power of judges to deny people release if they had those specified charges. 

The Act promoted the use of “release under non-monetary conditions” which was not in the statute before. This opened the door to more use of electronic monitoring which had not been used very frequently in New York in any case. To further block the use of EM, advocates pushed a clause in the legislation that banned the use of local government funds to pay for the services of private electronic monitoring companies. Since virtually all electronic monitoring is run by private companies, this effectively blocked any expansion of EM for those released under the bail reform. 

A year later, a backlash hit from both Republicans and moderate Democrats. They succeeded in restoring the discretion of judges to impose bail on certain people largely by reducing the list of charges for which an individual had to be released but the restrictions on private companies providing EM remained. Moreover, the act contained no provision for funding of services desperately needed by those in jails-housing, healthcare, mental health care facilities. Instead of spending on those services, the city of New York voted to spend $8.7 billion to build four new jails in the city to replace Rikers. 

Key issues raised:

• Legislation can be crafted to ban something through indirect tactics. Instead of outlawing EM, the legislation blocked contracts with private companies for EM. But since only private companies offer EM, it was the equivalent of a ban.
• Once a law is passed about EM there is likely to be a backlash to at least roll back some portions of the legislation. People involved in campaigns should be aware of this. 
• Electronic monitoring is important but it is only one piece of the massive system of incarceration and punishment. If we block the implementation of EM while billions go to jail building, it is definitely a limited victory.