Editor's note: This article was revised to include an additional statement from McHenry County State's Attorney Patrick Kenneally specifically replying to the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice's characterization of his criticisms of the SAFE-T Act as "racist." That statement was received by The Cook County Record on Monday, Oct. 28.
A suburban prosecutor has added his voice to those who believe the signature criminal justice reforms, commonly known as the SAFE-T Act, pushed through by Gov. JB Pritzker and the Democrats who dominate Springfield, has resulted in "abject failure."
In a statement posted to his office's website, outgoing McHenry County State's Attorney Patrick Kenneally said the reforms within that law has resulted in consistent problems for law enforcement, prosecutors, the courts and the community.
"Not only has it (the SAFE-T Act) failed to deliver on what its proponents promised, the court system has experienced the exact problems predicted by critics," Kenneally said in the release.
"Despite this, proponents continue to obfuscate behind 'lack of data,' 'reduced costs to criminal defendants' (no mention is made of the increased cost to non-criminal taxpayers), and 'no major increase in crime generally' (a mostly irrelevant factor in evaluating the SAFE-T Act)," Kenneally said.
Parenthetical statements were included in the original text of Kenneally's release.
Kenneally, however, said in the 12 months since the SAFE-T Act's provisions have taken full effect, his county has seen:
- "A 30% increase in crime by those on pre-trial release compared with those on cash bail;"
- "An increase in the jail population;"
- "A 280% increase in failures to appear (FTA);" and
- "A 35% reduction in restitution paid to crime victims."
In footnotes within the release, Kenneally reported that 114 defendants in McHenry County released from custody under the rules of the SAFE-T Act, who had been charged with felonies or Class A misdemeanors have committed new crimes since the law took full effect in September 2023. That equaled about 10% of all such criminal defendants arrested and charged in McHenry County during that time.
Meanwhile, from Sept. 19, 2022, to June 2, 2023 - roughly the time period immediately before the SAFE-T Act took effect - 97 defendants, or about 7.8% of such criminal defendants committed more crime while released under the now-outlawed cash bail system.
Kenneally further noted that the jail population in McHenry County increased from 204 detainees on Sept. 17, 2023, to 216 criminal defendants incarcerated on Sept. 15, 2024.
"How is it possible for the jail population to increase along with the number of crimes being committed by those on pretrial release? Simply put, we are incarcerating the wrong people," Kenneally wrote in the release.
Under the former cash bail system, Kenneally said judges still had the ability to release 97% of all those charged with crimes while they waited to stand trial. He said judges had greater ability to take into consideration such factors as the risk posed to the community by the person charged and the defendants' ability to pay bail.
"Accordingly, different bail amounts were set for different defendants, all based on their financial means," Kenneally wrote. "Low-risk defendants who could not afford any bail, were routinely released on their own recognizance."
Under the SAFE-T Act, however, Kenneally said judges are denied "the discretion to detain defendants charged with most crimes, no matter how high-risk. Rather, in most cases, a judge has no discretion and must release the defendant."
Kenneally said the impact of the SAFE-T Act is also seen in the number of criminal defendants he asserted are skipping court dates.
Before the SAFE-T Act took effect, defendants were required to appear in court on their required court dates or risk a judge issuing a warrant for their arrest for failure to appear in court. Under the new law, however, judges must instead follow more lenient procedures.
Judges must now issue "notice to appear" postcards to people who don't appear in court when otherwise required. That postcard includes instructions directing the defendant to appear in court at a future time and date.
If defendants again ignore the notice to appear, judges can issue formal summons to the defendants to appear within 48 hours or an arrest warrant. If they appear within 48 hours, the initial failure to appear is wiped away and cannot be used by prosecutors to argue that the defendant is defiant or a flight risk.
From Sept. 18, 2023, to March 18, 2024, Kenneally said McHenry County courts issued 8,845 FTA summons and 616 FTA warrants, a total of 9,461 notices and warrants.
During an equivalent pre-SAFE-T Act period from March-September 2023, the county had issued 1,055 FTA warrants and 1,433 FTA summons, a total of 2,488 notices and warrants.
"This dramatic increase is a significant cost to the court system," Kenneally said. "Not only has the court expended resources needlessly gathering and preparing for the court appearances of no-show defendants, it must also expend resources finding the defendant, notifying them of the failure to appear, and (in some cases) detaining them."
In response to Kenneally's assessment, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, which includes nearly four dozen organizations who support the SAFE-T Act, said Kenneally's take on the performance of the reforms in the past year is inaccurate and "misleading."
They criticized Kenneally for including percentages to exaggerate the increases in the numbers of criminal defendants committing new crimes while awaiting trial. They asserted the increases in the rate of criminal defendants committing crimes while on pre-trial release is minimal, as were the increases in the county's jail population.
And they asserted Kenneally had misled in discussing the rates at which people charged with crimes fail to appear in court. The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice said the drop in warrants for failure to appear instead showed the situation has improved. They said the raw numbers of summons issued don't indicate "whether multiple summons were issued in the same case or how many people returned to court after receiving a summons."
The SAFE-T Act proponents said "most people who miss court return voluntarily when given the chance, so the increased use of summons is likely driving the decreased use of warrants."
"Judges are thus choosing to give people the chance to return to court voluntarily, reducing unnecessary issuance of warrants and wasted court and law enforcement resources," the Network for Pretrial Justice said.
Kenneally, however, said the law has produced the results inevitable under "a misguided and unreasonable policy."
"A policy that proceeded from the ideology of a privileged group of advocates who dictate criminal justice legislation in Illinois overcoming common sense," Kenneally added.
The Network for Pretrial Justice called this characterization of the law's supporters - who they said were led by black Democratic legislators - "appallingly racist."
In a statement provided to The Cook County Record on Oct. 28, Kenneally responded to this specific assertion: "The hair-trigger 'racism' charge of advocates has lost its rhetorical force after having been hastily and baselessly made one too many times as an alternative to engaging in good faith with those who disagree with them. I understand and respect their passion. I am open to and welcome legitimate criticism of my statistics or views. I just wish dissent on these topics in this state wasn't treated by the party of unchecked power as heresy punishable by reputational death."
Kenneally's assessment on the perceived ineffectiveness of the SAFE-T Act at persuading criminal defendants to appear in court echoes similar concerns expressed recently by Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Iris Martinez.
In a letter sent to Cook County's other top elected officials, Martinez asserted as many as three-quarters of all criminal defendants in Cook County may have failed to appear at otherwise required court hearings in the 12 months since the SAFE-T Act took full effect and eliminated cash bail, while rewriting swaths of the laws governing how criminals are arrested, jailed and prosecuted in Illinois.
"Cook County leaders must recognize the financial and human impacts that 67,416 failures to appears to court have on case processing, staffing, victims/witness cooperation, and on our law enforcement partners," Martinez wrote. "Together, we need to ensure that victims, witnesses, lawyers, judges, and police officers are not attending tens of thousands of hearings without the defendants being present."
Martinez further questioned if algorithms being used by the Cook County Circuit Court to determine if a defendant should remain free while awaiting trial accurately reflects their actual "likelihood of being rearrested or to fail to appear to court."
In response, Cook County Chief Judge Tim Evans echoed the statements from the Network for Pretrial Justice, questioning the methodology Martinez had used to calculate her estimates.
The statements from Martinez and Kenneally arrived as a counter to a stream of statements from Illinois Democratic officials and politicians seeking to take a victory lap on the first anniversary of the SAFE-T Act's effective date.
The law was enacted in 2022 by Pritzker and his fellow Democrats, as left-wing lawmakers seized on anti-police sentiment stirred by Black Lives Matter protests and riots to push through sprawling reforms of virtually every aspect of Illinois' criminal justice system.
The law took effect in September 2023 after the Democrat-dominated Illinois Supreme Court reject a challenge to the law from many of Illinois' county state's attorneys, how had argued the state's Democratic governing supermajority had trampled the state constitution by rewriting the state's criminal justice laws without amending the state constitution first.
Kenneally was among the state's attorneys opposed to the SAFE-T Act.
Both Kenneally and Martinez will not be reelected this fall.
Martinez was defeated in the Democratic Party primary this spring by Democratic nominee Mariyana Spyropoulos.
Spyropoulos had received the backing of Preckwinkle and other county and state Democratic Party bosses.
In McHenry County, Kenneally, a Republican, announced this spring that he would not seek reelection, citing family concerns as the father of four young children and as a caretaker for "two ailing parents."
Kenneally had served for eight years as the county's chief prosecutor.
Instead, he threw his support behind his First Assistant State's Attorney Randi Freese.
Freese is running unopposed this fall in the heavily Republican county in Chicago's far northwest suburbs.
A spokesman for Freese did not respond to questions from the Cook County Record concerning whether Freese supports Kenneally's statements and conclusions concerning the SAFE-T Act.