Rep. Mike Coffey Says Pretrial Release Makes Communities Less Safe

They marked three years since Illinois abolished cash bail. Still here in these Mike Miletus reports, Democrats are celebrating the Pre-Trial Fairness Act, while Republicans are demanding change. Sponsors and advocates say pretrial jailing has decreased since 2023 levels, and judges are spending more time reviewing each person's case. They also say millions of dollars previously taken as bond payments are now staying in the state's most marginalized communities. They know that a loved one is able to come home and they don't have to worry about whether they're going to pay for, you know, their kid's food or they're going to be able to pay for rent. Now those things aren't going to be in conflict with each other because they don't have to spend, you know, unnecessary money to be able to get someone out from pretrial incarceration. But local Republicans say the pretrial fairness system needs significant reforms. Representative Mike Coffey introduced a plan earlier this year to make all felonies detainable and give judges more discretion during pretrial hearings. His plan would also let courts deny pretrial release to those who prosecutors say pose a threat to public safety or are likely to miss court. We had a situation in Springfield where somebody robbed storage units. They went to jail. They were let out the same day, re-robbed the same storage units that they'd robbed earlier in the morning. I mean, this stuff has got to stop. I mean, when you have repeat offenders, people like that, they've got to be able to be detained and put in jail. Sangamon County Sheriff Paula Crouch and State's Attorney John Millheiser support Coffey's plan. But Senator Robert Peters says it's a non-starter. He says the worst thing a state's attorney can do is say everybody is a threat. We want the state's attorney and the judge to be very, very clear and very concise in who they're targeting when it comes to detaining somebody because the community safety is on the line. Peters argues Republicans are only attacking the law because they have nothing else to run on in 2026. But Coffey says voters are concerned about public safety, too. If you've got pedophiles out there and you can't detain them, and you know that you're going to harm kids, you know, I think it's very harmful, you know, and you just don't know who it is going to harm. That's the case. It's like a ticking time bomb. We know these people are going to repeat because history has shown us that they will. Reporting in Springfield, Mike Miltich, WAND News.