Letter: Money bail system plagued with injustice

In recent weeks, the Daily Herald has published multiple attacks on the Pretrial Fairness Act, legislation that ends Illinois' use of money bond in 2023. What these attacks ignore is the harm caused by money bond. As chair of the Criminal Justice Committee of the DuPage NAACP, I have seen the injustices of money bail.

An individual I know was charged with unauthorized possession of a weapon and the judge gave him a bail of over $800,000, even though he had no record. The unaffordable bail caused this young father to lose his job and the family lost their home. Now they're living with friends in a cramped apartment with no savings. A wife without her husband, three children without their father. Why?

Bail is supposed to ensure a return to court, but it has become a class-based system in service of mass incarceration. The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is at the root of our legal system, what the bail system does is incarcerate the innocent based on their ability to pay. The accused lose their homes, businesses and relationships because they are not wealthy enough to afford bail.

The Pretrial Fairness Act attempts to address this issue by ending money bail. Judges will use the facts of a case to decide whether or not to jail someone pretrial. The legislation outlines several conditions and parameters to establish if a person should be jailed or released pretrial. Other jurisdictions that have reduced or eliminated pretrial jailing have shown that the overwhelming majority of people released pretrial return to court and don't get rearrested.

If we want to live in a more just, equitable and fair America, we must support the Pretrial Fairness Act and end money bail.

Vincent Gaddis

Aurora