'Our criminal-justice system is not working'
Lt. Gov. Stratton presses for reforms at joint committee hearing on bail, sentencing
Sen. Elgie Sims pleads for bipartisan compromise at Thursday’s hearing on criminal-justice reform. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
By Ted Cox
CHICAGO — Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton said, “Our criminal-justice system is not working,” at a joint House and Senate committee meeting in Chicago Thursday on cash bail and mandatory sentencing.
Stratton spoke at a subject-matter hearing at the Bilandic Building held jointly by the state Senate Criminal Law Committee and the Special Committee on Public Safety, along with the House Judiciary-Criminal Committee. Picking up where she and Gov. Pritzker left off at a so-called fireside chat on criminal-justice reform last month in Chicago, Stratton said the Illinois prison population had risen 30,000 in recent decades to almost 40,000 and was costing the state $1.4 billion a year.
“Our criminal-justice system is not working,” she said to open the hearing, adding that it is “not effective at reducing crime nor in repairing harm done to communities.”
Stratton wondered aloud, “Does the cash-bail system protect public safety or does it protect wealth?”
Camile Lindsay, chief of staff at the Illinois Department of Corrections, testified that the state has 38,000 prisoners in custody, 54.5 percent African Americans and 12.7 percent Hispanics. She said 19 percent are 50 or older and many others are mentally ill or physically ailing. She added that the department has set a goal to reduce the prison population 6 percent by next year.
Sharone Mitchell, deputy director of the Illinois Justice Project, said the main issue isn’t racial but economic, and that when one examines the state prison population “what you’re looking at is poor people.” He charged that the current bail system was responsible for “a massive transfer of money from communities that can barely sustain these hits.”
Brittany Mitchell of Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood testified that when her husband was held on a $100,000 bond it threw their family into turmoil. “I knew I couldn't pay it,” she said, “and he was our livelihood.” She argued that the current cash-bail process — in which many are held because they can’t make bail even on minor crimes — had changed the burden of proof so that those held are “guilty until proven innocent.”
Law-enforcement officials, however, were leery of dropping an entrenched element of the criminal-justice system like cash bail.
Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton states her case before the subject-matter hearing on criminal-justice reforms. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
“We’re being asked to sail into dangerous waters,” said McHenry County Sheriff Bill Prim.
DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said his area had already seen an increases in failures to appear in court on serious charges such as aggravated battery since the state passed an earlier law on bond reform enacted in 2017. “That is the sign of a broken system,” he said. Arguing that it has “an enormous impact on victims,” Berlin added, “When defendants don’t appear in court, victims are denied justice.”
“We all have a great responsibility to protect the innocent who are out in our community,” said Rep. Terri Bryant of Murphysboro, the official Republican spokeswoman on the House committee and a 20-year veteran of the Department of Corrections. “That has to be part of the conversation we’re having today.
“There is no one here representing the victims who have been assaulted,” she later added.
Yet Sen. Elgie Sims Jr. of Chicago, chairman of the Senate Criminal Law Committee, countered that there are already provisions for victims’ rights in the state constitution. Calling it “a historic moment for the state of Illinois and a historic moment for us all,” he emphasized, “All of us want our communities to be safe,” but there is a pressing need to “truly reform the criminal-justice system,” on bail and mandatory sentencing.
Activist Marshan Allen told his story of being sentenced at 15 to two counts of mandatory life without parole for a tangential role in a murder. According to Allen, even the judge in his case complained about not being legally able to alter the sentencing. After being certified as a paralegal to fight his own case, earning an associate’s degree, and clerking in the law library, Allen said it was only after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against mandatory life sentences for minors that he was released.
“There is nothing just about a system that robs justices of their discretion,” said Parle’ Roe-Taylor, a Cook County public defender.
Ben Ruddell of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois argued that mandatory-minimum sentences “replaces the judgment of the legislature for the judgment of the judge.”
Berlin actually agreed with that on bond, stating: “The judge is in the best position to set bail.”
But otherwise there was little overlap between those arguing civil rights and those arguing victims’ rights, although all agreed no one wants to release a violent criminal likely to commit the same offense or worse. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Berlin said.
Pointing to a recent rise in crime in New York City after it abandoned cash bonds, Rep. Patrick Windhorst of Metropolis suggested it “may lead to an increase in crime.” But Sharone Mitchell countered that other factors were at play in New York and cited New Jersey, which had seen no spike in crime after doing away with cash bonds two years ago.
“This is a very intense battle,” said Rep. Justin Slaughter of Chicago, chairman of the House Judiciary-Criminal Committee. He pressed for a “comprehensive, holistic approach to our criminal-justice system.”
Stratton and Rudell both made the point that former Gov. Bruce Rauner had appointed a bipartisan committee to address reforms to criminal justice, but after two years none of its 27 proposals had been adopted. “Cash bond is bad policy,” Sharone Mitchell said. “This is not just a Cook County problem. This problem exists across the entire state.”
“This is an issue at which we cannot fail,” Sims said. “This has to be a focused strategy where all of us work together. … We have got to be partners.”
The subject-matter hearings will continue in Springfield later this month as the General Assembly works toward getting some reform done on bond and sentencing during its spring session.