bail Archives - Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Graphic with the title text: Pretrial Fairness Act - Explained.

The Pretrial Fairness Act: Explained

Written by Austin Segal and Kate Bannister. Earlier this month, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice published a court-watching report titled Changing Landscapes: Community Court-Watchers’ Observations of the Second Year of Pretrial Fairness Act Implementation. The report, in which Chicago A...

Statement from the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice: “Illinois defends the Pretrial Fairness Act. We will not bow down to Trump.”

Yesterday, August 25, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Orders targeting jurisdictions that have implemented reforms to money bond or ended it entirely, like Illinois did in 2023 with the Pretrial Fairness Act. One order "instructs DC police to charge suspects with federal crimes and hold them...

NEW—The Impact of the Pretrial Fairness Act on Electronic Monitoring in Cook County: Report

Today, Chicago Appleseed published a new report, The Impact of the Pretrial Fairness Act on Electronic Monitoring in Cook County, examining the impacts of the legislative reforms on Cook County’s pretrial electronic monitoring (EM) system. These reforms, initiated as part of the Pretrial Fairnes...

Getting and Posting Bond for Incarcerated Immigrants Increasingly Difficult

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse published a new report last month analyzing the latest immigration court records including 19,000 bond hearings this year, showing how outcomes for incarcerated immigrants seeking release on bond varied widely between states. Overall, the national a...

BREAKING: Illinois Supreme Court Affirms Constitutionality of the Pretrial Fairness Act

We are thrilled to share that the Illinois Supreme Court has officially handed down a decision upholding the constitutionality of the Pretrial Fairness Act! The community-led, multi-year effort to end wealth based pretrial jailing as punishment from our legal system has won yet another victory over...

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