On February 22, 2021, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed House Bill 3653 into law as Public Act 101-0652. This has been dubbed the “SAFE-T Act”.
Like most legislation, this bill that has now become law is several hundred pages long. In order to provide useful information that is of interest to our clients, our firm will be posting a series of blogs to explain different provisions of the law.
One of the very significant changes is in a section known as “Pre-Trial Reforms”. This provision abolishes cash bail as of January 1, 2023. While other states have made reforms to the bail process at local levels, Illinois is now the first State to entirely eliminate cash bail. While this does not apply to people suspected of violent crimes or in other certain circumstances, in most cases it eliminates the need for cash bail to be released from jail for people who have been arrested for non-violent crimes while their cases are pending in court.
This bill also includes revisions of multiple statutes to replace references to “bail” and “conditions of bail” with “pretrial release” and “conditions of pretrial release.”
Please check back to our website each week to review more concise information about this legislation.