Letter Regarding Electronic Monitoring in Illinois

The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice released a letter that was sent to the Illinois Supreme Court by more than 40 academics calling to protect the electronic monitoring provisions of the Pretrial Fairness Act and to halt the expansion of this harmful technology. Read the letter below, learn more about electronic monitoring and take action to defend the Pretrial Fairness Act.

November 9, 2022

Marcia Meis Director, Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts 222 N. LaSalle St, 13th floor Chicago, IL 60601 Sent via email to mmeis@illinoiscourts.gov

Cara LeFevour Smith Director, Office of Statewide Pretrial Services Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts 222 N. LaSalle Street, 13th Floor Chicago, IL 60601 Sent via email to clefevoursmith@illinoiscourts.gov

Re: Opposition to increased use of electronic monitoring in Illinois

Dear Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts:

As researchers and legal and policy experts that have supported advocacy for pretrial justice reforms, we are elated with the passage of the Pretrial Fairness Act and the protections it secures for thousands of Illinoisans. It is critical that the end of money bond and decrease of pretrial jailing are not responded to with an increase in other forms of pretrial injustices.

Our organizations have a particular interest in the issue of electronic monitoring (EM). Electronic monitoring, when accompanied by house arrest (as is typical) is the most punitive form of pretrial release available to the courts. Our work has borne this out. We have worked with individuals on pretrial EM in Illinois and other states. We have supported people who have lost access to their children, been fired from their jobs, and been removed from their housing solely because they could not secure movement to attend an interview, go to a hospital or sign a lease. We have handled messages of distress at all times of the night and day from individuals on the monitor who have been unable to access food, medical care or respond to a family emergency because the stringent conditions of electronic monitoring held them captive in their house. In perhaps the most extreme of cases, we worked with an expectant father who was unable to attend the birth of his child because he was unable to file a request for movement at the precise time the child would be born, an obviously impossible requirement. The child arrived early, and he was unable to leave the house in time.

These losses and restrictions are imposed without justification, as a thorough review of available research has found little to no evidence that electronic monitoring improves key pretrial outcomes like court appearance or community safety. Instead, it is found to undermine pretrial success by increasing technical violations and pretrial incarceration for people who would otherwise likely succeed on pretrial release without monitoring. A wealth of evidence demonstrates that the widely used forms of EM technology are often hypersensitive and unreliable, triggering false alerts that are used to justify jailing individuals without due process for unsubstantiated alleged violations. This ultimately worsens mass incarceration and amplifies existing racial disparities. For these reasons, courts must move away from pretrial EM.

To our knowledge, the Pretrial Fairness Act is the first legislation in the US that guarantees some basic rights for individuals on pretrial electronic monitoring, and thousands of people have already benefited as a result—without compromising community safety. The spirit of the Pretrial Fairness Act focuses on reducing pretrial jailing, acknowledging that house arrest with electronic monitoring replicates many of the harms of incarceration in brick and mortar jails. When people are unable to take care of themselves or pursue positive opportunities because of electronic monitoring, their lives and families fall apart and our communities suffer. By guaranteeing people’s right to movement to carry out essential activities and mandating that the court regularly reconsider the imposition of EM, the Pretrial Fairness Act is an important first step in moving away from treating pretrial release conditions as forms of punishment.

Moving jails into people's homes through extending the use of electronic monitoring would undermine the positive impacts of the Pretrial Fairness Act. While the legislation does not address the full range of pretrial challenges, it constitutes an enormous advance. We are concerned that certain decision-makers will push back against this progress either by expanding use of electronic monitoring or falling short of implementing the mandates of the Act.

Therefore, we encourage you to promote the use of non-punitive programs as part of pretrial release and refrain from expanding the use of pretrial electronic monitoring through Illinois’ new Office of Statewide Pretrial Services. If EM is used, we implore you to ensure that the conditions of EM maximize movement and participation in family and community life, rather than converting homes into jail cells.

We would be happy to discuss this with you further. Please feel free to contact us at: james@mediajustice.org.

Sincerely,

Chelsea Barabas, PhD Candidate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sheila Bedi, Clinical Professor of Law; Director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Avalon Betts-Gaston, JD, Director, Illinois Alliance for Reentry and Justice

Julie Biehl, Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Children and Family Justice Center; Assistant Dean of Bluhm Legal Clinic, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law

Annalise Buth, Assistant Clinical Professor of Law, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Herschella G. Conyers, Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Criminal & Juvenile Justice Clinic; The University of Chicago Law School

Jennifer Copp, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University

Stephen Demuth, Associate Professor of Sociology, Bowling Green State University

Premal Dharia, Executive Director, Institute to End Mass Incarceration, Harvard Law School

Colin Doyle, Associate Professor of Law, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles

Erin Eife, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Brown University

Matt Epperson, Associate Professor, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, The University of Chicago

Douglas Evans, Senior Research Associate, Institute for State and Local Governance

April Fernandes, Assistant Professor of Sociology, North Carolina State University

Alison Flaum, Clinical Professor of Law, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Lisa Frohmann, Associate Professor of Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago

Craig B. Futterman, Clinical Professor of Law; Director, Civil Rights & Police Accountability

Project; University of Chicago Law School

Adom Getachew, Assistant Professor of Political Science, and Race, Diaspora and Indigeniety, University of Chicago

Xóchitl E. Guerrero, MSW, LCSW, PhD Student, University of Illinois Chicago; Clinical Assistant Professor, Dominican University

Susila Gurusami, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law & Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago

Kasey Henricks, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

James Kilgore, Research Scholar, Center for African Studies, University of Illinois

Urbana-Champaign; Media Fellow, MediaJustice

Gabriela Kirk, Senior Research Associate, Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University

Rahim Kurwa, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice, University of Illinois Chicago

Darryl Li, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Associate Member of the Law School, University of Chicago

Shobha L. Mahadev, Clinical Professor of Law, Children and Family Justice Center, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law

Reuben Jonathan Miller, PhD, Associate Professor, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice and the Department of Race, Diaspora and Indigeniety, University of Chicago; Research Professor, American Bar Foundation

Branden McLeod, Associate Professor of Social Work, University of Illinois Chicago

Oren Nimni, Litigation Director, Rights Behind Bars

Marisa Omori, Associate Professor, University of Missouri St. Louis

Joshua Page, Professor of Sociology and Law, University of Minnesota

Shawn E. Parra, PhD Student in Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago

Matt Parsons, Community Lawyer, Baltimore Action Legal Team

Tiera Rainey, Executive Director, Tucson Second Chance Community Bail Fund

Malcolm Rich, Executive Director, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

Emmett Sanders, Researcher, MediaJustice

Sophia Sarantakos, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Social Work, University of Denver

Alison Siegler, Clinical Professor of Law; Founding Director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic, University of Chicago Law School

Sandra Susan Smith, Daniel & Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice, Harvard Kennedy School

Ash Stephens, Postdoctoral Research Scholar, Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois at Chicago

Brianna Suslovic, MSW, PhD Student, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, & Practice, The University of Chicago

Robert Vargas, Associate Professor of Social Sciences; Founder and Director, UChicago Justice Project; The University of Chicago

Durrell Malik Washington, Sr., PhD Candidate, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, & Practice, The University of Chicago

Pilar Weiss, Director, Community Justice Exchange

Kate Weisburd, Associate Professor of Law, George Washington University

Erica Zunkel, Clinical Professor of Law; Associate Director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic, The University of Chicago Law School

Cc: Hon. Mary Jane Theis, Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice, sent via email to mjtheis@illinoiscourts.gov

Hon. P. Scott Neville, Jr., Illinois Supreme Court Justice and Liaison to the Pretrial Implementation Task Force, sent via email to pneville@illinoiscourts.gov

Hon. Robbin Stuckert (Ret.), Chair, Pretrial Implementation Task Force sent via email to rstuckert@illinoiscourts.gov