Illinois became the only state to completely eliminate cash bail in July 2023. One year later, 88 percent of people released pretrial had not been charged with a new crime, and failure-to-appear rates dropped from 17 percent to 15 percent, challenging claims that bail reform increases crime or court no-shows.
The Eighth Amendment bans excessive bail but does not guarantee everyone a right to bail. For decades, judges set cash bail amounts that wealthy defendants could pay while poor defendants remained jailed despite posing no flight risk or danger to the community. Bail reform movements argue that a person''s wealth should not determine whether they are released before trial, especially since pretrial detention can cause lost jobs, evictions, and family disruptions. Starting around 2019, states like New York, Illinois, and Florida passed laws reducing reliance on cash bail. New York''s 2019 reforms eliminated money bail for many non-violent felonies, slashing jail populations by 40 percent from 2019 to 2020. Over 97 percent of those released were not rearrested for a violent felony in the year after implementation. Illinois now uses risk assessments and standardized criteria instead of cash bail. Florida created a uniform bond schedule across its 20 judicial circuits. Some states like Texas have moved in the opposite direction, with proposed constitutional amendments allowing judges to deny bail entirely for people accused of certain violent crimes.