Illinois’ SAFE-T Act to Take Effect in January, With Possible Changes

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker speaks during a press conference at McCormick Place in Chicago on April 3, 2020. (Chris Sweda/Getty Images)

State legislators in Illinois head into the year’s final session with possible changes to a controversial criminal justice law.

Supported by Democrat supermajorities in the state General Assembly and signed by recently reelected Gov. J.B Pritzker in February 2021, the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act (SAFE-T Act) is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023.

While some provisions of the bill are not considered particularly controversial—such as requiring police officers to wear body cameras by 2025—the SAFE-T Act’s passage officially made Illinois the first state in the nation to abolish cash bail as the standard for pretrial detention. Offenses for which those arrested cannot be held in custody prior to trial include second-degree murder, car-jacking, kidnapping, battery, theft, and selling drugs.

Critics of the bill, such as U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), blasted the legislation as a “Purge Law” in a Nov. 8 Twitter post, and 62 state’s attorneys (including some Democrats) claim the act poses a serious threat to public safety and have filed a lawsuit to declare it unconstitutional.

“A window is open for a month and a half to make meaningful changes to the SAFE-T Act,” state House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, a former Cook County prosecutor and outspoken critic of the legislation, told reporters on Nov. 9. Attorney General Kwame Raoul has even admitted that some fixes are needed. Democrats are expected to clean up the language, however no substantial changes to the intent of the bill are planned.

On Wednesday, state’s attorneys opposed to the SAFE-T Act filed a 35-page motion for summary judgment asking Kankakee County Judge Thomas W. Cunningham to find the law unconstitutional and issue a restraining order to prevent the state from implementing it. The state’s attorneys argue that the law violates several parts of the Illinois Constitution, including the separation of powers clause, by stripping judges of their authority to detain defendants, set monetary bail, and revoke bail.

They also argue that the part of the bill giving police discretion to release defendants without bail on low-level offenses is unlawful, since it takes away authority from the courts.

“Because both the substance of Public Act 101-652 and the process through which it was enacted are in flagrant violation of the Illinois Constitution, this statute should be stricken as void in its entirety,” the state’s attorneys argued in Wednesday’s motion (pdf).

A hearing in the case will take place on Dec. 7 in a consolidated civil lawsuit in Kankakee County.