Eye On Illinois: Pretrial detention data starting to paint picture of state’s new reality

“Everyone wants to know: ‘How’s it going in Illinois?’ … There’s 102 counties, and every one’s a little bit different.”

Capitol News Illinois got that quote from David Olson, co-director of the Center for Criminal Justice at Loyola University of Chicago, a vital inclusion in Friday’s analysis of data on the implementation of a 9-month-old system in Illinois in which criminal suspects cannot buy their way out of pretrial detention.

The numbers cover 75 counties under the Illinois Supreme Court’s Office of Statewide Pretrial Services. In those jurisdictions, when prosecutors sought to have a suspect detained, judges granted 63% of those requests. That resulted in more than 28,000 court dates with more than 5% requiring failure to appear warrants.

Olson’s quote jumped out because another story was fresh in mind: a June 24 report from Shaw Media’s Tom Collins headlined “No-shows climb 16% in La Salle County under the SAFE-T Act.”

State’s Attorney Joe Navarro was an outspoken critic of criminal justice reforms before, during and after implementation (“A blind man could have seen this coming,” he told Collins), but his office did note La Salle County’s raw overall numbers are in part attributable to certain felony suspects who have several failure to appear warrants on their individual files.

The OSPS data shows La Salle County’s failure-to-appear rate is 6%, slightly ahead of the average. Navarro’s focus on the increase rather than the total is a political choice, but no less a relevant talking point. If the numbers are up, that’s useful information. But if those in control are content with 5%, the perception the tradeoff is acceptable also is a political choice.

Olson told CNI the rate is likely to increase because the small sample window means many of the tracked cases remain open and there is more time for suspects to miss hearings. But he and retired Cook County Judge Cara Smith, the OSPS leader, also pointed out judges don’t have to issue warrants the first time someone misses a court date.

“We send about 200 court date text message reminders a day,” Smith said. “So that has been shown – just like it is when we get a haircut or have a doctor’s appointment – to be an effective way of keeping important appointments at the forefront of people’s minds.”

It’s also worth noting Cook, DuPage, Kane and McHenry county data isn’t included in OSPS figures. In the latter three, judges are granting about 40% of detention requests. Further, within the 75 included counties there are different practices, chief among them prosecutorial discretion.

The best advice thus far is to avoid taking any broad data or individual incidents as applicable to the entire state. Hopefully, we’re all still learning.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. Follow him on X @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.