Letter: Misleading justice reform information

I attended a legislative update recently with my state senator and the two state representatives in the area. The meeting consisted of very little progress and a lot of blaming of other elected officials. Partial truths regarding the SAFE-T Act (Illinois Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act) were shared that confused the issue of safety and used fear to stimulate the audience.

In December 2016, the Rauner administration Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform submitted a report evaluating potential reforms to safely reduce the state's prison population. The over-incarceration of people in Illinois has put pressure on the state budget, devastated lives and communities and has not made us safer. Criminal justice reform measures, many of which are to be found in the SAFE-T Act, have been put forward for many years and have not been rushed as some people contend.

I worked with a League of Women Voters team that examined the issue. We read through hundreds of documents, studies and reports. We visited the county jails, the city morgue, bond courts in different counties, the Kewanee Life Skills Center and talked with judges, sheriffs, police, lawyers and experts in the field of criminal justice and mental health.

We learned of many ways that would improve our criminal justice system, including the abolition of cash bail, a key component of the SAFE-T Act. In our legal system, a person is innocent until proven guilty. When cash bond is a condition of release, it generally means that poor people are detained. Detention should be based upon a person's danger to society or risk of flight, never their pocketbook. Above all, we learned that appeals to fear do not produce evidenced-based solutions to achieve public safety and restore faith in a fair justice system.

Laura Davis

Inverness