IL jailbreak: New law requires release of suspected felons without bail

The crime wave that’s been dominating the streets of America in cities and states run by the far left is gaining steam, and Illinois is about to toss gasoline into the stoker via a new law that requires the release of suspected felons without bail.

As waves of “woke” prosecutors — many of whom won election via George Soros funding or via gubernatorial or presidential appointments — refuse to prosecute lawbreakers; and as far left members of state legislators, city councils and mayors’ offices do away with bail and other deterrents that keep criminals off the streets, criminals from around the world remain free while crime rates skyrocket.

Crime in Chicago, IL, a city universally known as one of the most dangerous cities in America, is so out-of-control that entire websites have been set up for the purpose of tracking daily homicides and violent crimes in the Windy City. According to one such site, Hey Jackass, the month of September recorded 45 people shot/killed and 218 shot/wounded (263 shot and 51 homicides) in just the first 20 days.

Don’t forget, guns are essentially illegal there.

Now, as is also the case in many fundamentally red states where giant blue dots dictate the legislative agenda for the entire state, Illinois is following in the steps of New York, California, Washington, and a few others. Namely, they will bestow rights and special favor to law breakers at the expense of law abiders.

Ironically, the law abiders who suffer under these policies are the ones responsible for putting the far-left legislators endangering their streets and lives into office in the first place. Talk about a twisted mess.

Earlier this month, WTVO of Rockford, Illinois, ran a report about the state’s jailbreak policies and the release of suspected felons without bail with the headline, On January 1st, 2023, Illinois jails will turn many prisoners loose:

An Illinois criminal justice reform law will do away with the cash bail system on January 1st, 2023, which means suspects charged with certain felonies – including second-degree murder, aggravated battery, and arson – will be released without bail.

“Anyone sitting in jail right now with all these pending charges, they’re going to be let out,” Johnson County Sheriff Peter Sopczak said. “The gates are open and they’re going to be let out onto the streets.”

According to the far left, bail is inherently discriminatory, and since a disproportionately high number of criminal offenders have little or no money, asking them to provide bail is allegedly unfair. So, Chicago and a growing number of cities and states have decided to release those arrested by law enforcement with nothing more than a “pinky swear” promise that they will show up in court on their appointed date.

“Being poor should not be a crime,” they proclaim, so they let them walk right back out onto the streets. You can guess about how many of them show up to stand before a judge on court date.

Illinois House Bill 163, a massive police reform initiative introduced by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, includes a 611-page amendment that abolishes cash bail known as the Pretrial Fairness Act. The aim of the amendment is to set certain criminals free without having to wait in jail for their court date because they can’t afford bond.

Remarkably, it gets even better … err … worse. According to the WTVO report:

The Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act (SAFE-T Act) would restrict which crimes a person can be arrested for, and would free those in custody for 12 offenses, including second-degree murder, aggravated battery, and arson without bail, as well as drug-induced homicide, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, intimidation, aggravated DUI, aggravated fleeing and eluding, drug offenses and threatening a public official.

“Even though aggravated battery is a violent offense that is a forcible felony, a person can get probation for it,” Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Reitz said to WICS. “It’s not a detainable offense under the new statue.”

These are the kinds of measures we’ve seen enacted in Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, San Francisco, CA (which resulted in a successful recall of the District Attorney), New York City, Los Angeles, CA, and elsewhere.

The result of jailbreak polices and releasing suspected felons without bail is plain for everyone to see. For example, a recent survey revealed that nearly 50 percent of San Francisco residents have been robbed in the last five years; even parking your car on the street has become an open invitation for a “smash and grab” robbery.

Any fool can guess the results of enacting these policies, and any half-a-fool can verify their conclusions with some simple internet research. Still, far left radicals charge ahead with this agenda — harming the very people they allegedly represent — because in places like Chicago, San Francisco, NYC, Seattle, etc., there’s virtually no chance of the electorate giving the other side a shot at running things.

In the end, far left lawmakers have nothing to lose; they’re quite comfy hiding in their million-dollar houses protected by walls that keep them from facing their constituents or suffering the consequences of their legislative decisions.

I invite you to see if you can guess what’s going to happen to Illinois crime rates in 2023 and beyond. Don’t worry if you can’t guess or if you guess wrong. I’ll write a follow up column (probably sometime in July 2023) once data for the first half of the year is compiled.

You can bet your bottom dollar it won’t be pretty.

 

---

Derrick Wilburn is the founder and Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Black Conservatives and the driving force behind POC Capitol Interns. His mission is to bridge the gap that exists between conservative political causes, parties, candidates and officer-holders and ethnic-minorities in the USA.