The radicals that run most of our major cities thought that going soft on crime was the way to go. So they reduced police budgets, they legalized a lot of things that used to be serious crimes, they decided to stop prosecuting numerous low level offenses, and many hardcore criminals found themselves getting sent back into the streets time after time after getting arrested by the police. For example, even though the city of Chicago is experiencing a massive crime wave, the jail population in Cook County is “at the lowest level in 40 years” thanks to policies that are extremely soft on crime…
One thing Chicagoans can’t help but notice when scrolling through news feeds: the number of violent crimes committed by defendants while they were out either on parole, probation or awaiting trial.
That’s not surprising given the long-term decarceration trend in Cook County that’s left the county’s jail population at the lowest level in 40 years. Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans started a no bail/low cash bail policy in 2017, resulting in a growing number of pretrial defendants out on bond who are then charged with new crimes, as we reported here. The state’s new SAFE-T Act has taken that policy even further. In September 2023, Illinois became the first state in the country to eliminate cash bail altogether, while the law also reduced the types of crimes for which defendants could be detained before their trial.
So how is that working out?
Has putting violent criminals back into the streets made things safer?