Among the almost 200 new state laws that were scheduled to go into effect January 1, 2023, was the Illinois Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act. The SAFE-T Act provided significant overhauls in several areas of the state’s criminal justice laws. Some of these provisions went into effect in July 2022, but one area – pretrial detention – was not to go into effect until this month. However, a Kankakee County judge’s ruling on a lawsuit filed by state attorneys and sheriffs from 65 counties has put the new law on hold.
Pretrial Detention Under the SAFE-T Act
Under the new law, cash bail in Illinois is abolished. This provision of the SAFE-T Act – referred to as the Pretrial Fairness Act – the following changes are made to the Illinois cash bail system:
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Eliminates money bond in Illinois
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