Cook County Pretrial Stakeholders Group

Clients: Cook County Office of the President, Justice Advisory Council

Challenge: Before September 2023, nearly three-quarters of the people in Cook County Jail were held accused, but not convicted, of non-violent crimes. Many defendants could be safely released before trial, but cannot afford their bond. The human cost is high: while detainees await trial, their lives are interrupted, often affecting their housing, employment, education, family, and relationships. The cost to taxpayers is also high: as the nation’s second-largest jail, Cook County Jail costs taxpayers more than $300 million annually.

Since 2014, Civic Consulting Alliance has facilitated the Cook County Pretrial Stakeholders’ Group (composed of Cook County’s Board President, Clerk of the Circuit Court, Sheriff, Public Defender, Chief Judge, and State's Attorney), tasked with promoting community safety and reducing reliance on incarceration. This includes mitigating the destabilizing effects of the system at every contact point, with a particular focus on helping those disproportionately impacted during the pretrial stages of criminal prosecution. 

Action: Civic Consulting Alliance helped the Cook County Pretrial Stakeholders’ Group develop a framework to identify and execute criminal justice reform priorities, including the elimination of cash bail, improvement of electronic monitoring practices, and alignment of data collection and utilization practices across criminal justice stakeholders. Building off the foundational work we completed in 2021, we continue to provide project management support to this group to coordinate implementation and monitor performance.

The stakeholders group continues to meet regularly to align priorities across the pretrial system, with a priority of implementing the Pretrial Fairness Act (PFA), featuring the statewide end to cash bail and related historical practices. Civic Consulting Alliance supported the group through a two-year ramp-up to the Pretrial Fairness Act going into effect in September 2023.

Result: Although it will take time for the Pretrial Fairness Act to take full effect across Illinois, early results are promising:  A study by the Loyola Center for Criminal Justice shows that 3,000 fewer people were admitted to jails statewide in the first three months of the Pretrial Fairness Act. After one year, data provided by the Chief Judge’s office shows that judges have granted detention petitions from prosecutors about 60% of the time. The people who are released continue to show up for hearings, with an arrest warrant being issued in only about 10% of cases when someone fails to show up. Loyola’s long-term study on the justice system reforms that began in 2017 shows that these justice system reforms increased equal justice but did not increase crime.

The conclusion of Civic Consulting Alliance’s ten years of support marks an important inflection point for the Group, as they now have sustainable project management support embedded within the Cook County Justice Advisory Council. The Group is primarily focused on continuously improving the County's implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act while also pursuing other justice reform efforts like developing a public-facing dashboard of criminal justice data and streamlining the County's electronic monitoring system.

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