But Illinois is about to overhaul the system that upended Ross’ life. Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act, which abolishes cash bail as a condition of pretrial release, will take effect Sept. 18, making Illinois the first state to end cash bail and a testing ground for whether — and how — it works on a large scale.

Judges can still keep people accused of serious crimes behind bars pretrial, but first would have to go through a more rigorous review of each case.

Critics say cash bail policies are especially unfair to Black people and other people of color. A 2022 federal civil rights report on cash bail systems found that courts tend to impose higher pretrial detention penalties on Black and Latino people, citing a study that showed Black men received bail amounts 35% higher than white men, and Latino men received bail amounts 19% higher than white men.

  • SymphonicResonance@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    New Mexico mostly eliminated cash bail about seven years ago but there was still issues . I hope Illinois learned from our mistakes when they wrote their law .

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      What sort of issues did NM run into?

      (And may I say, I love visiting and also am always surprised and amazed at how progressive and cool NM seems to be; I grew up in AZ… now in CO)