What is the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice?
The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice serves to connect organizations working to reduce pretrial incarceration in Illinois and, more broadly, to end mass incarceration and address the root causes of socio-economic and racial inequity in our legal system. By sharing information about local efforts, generating opportunities for collaboration, and developing shared strategies, we will generate more power and leverage our local work to achieve transformative pretrial policy changes for all Illinoisans. Our Network is grounded in the Principles of Pretrial Reform in Illinois, and in 2021 we helped pass the Pretrial Fairness Act, a law that will end wealth-based pretrial incarceration in our state when implemented in 2023. If your organization is interested in joining the Network, please contact us at info@endmoneybond.org.
Why We’re Organizing
Every year, more than 250,000 Illinois residents are jailed while awaiting trial. Rampant pretrial incarceration and onerous conditions of release cause harm to impacted individuals and entire communities, including lost jobs, lost housing, and even lost custody of children. In addition, people detained pretrial are more likely to be convicted and receive longer sentences compared to people released pretrial with similar backgrounds and charges. Money bonds disproportionately impact Black and Brown people, who are targeted by policing practices and more likely to be convicted and serve time in prison. Successful, transformative bond reform must restore the presumption of innocence for all accused people and eliminate the vast racial and socio-economic disparities that currently define our criminal justice system. Recent history, data, and research have shown that increased pretrial release has no negative impact on public safety or court appearance rates. In fact, people released pretrial are less likely to miss court or be re-arrested than people who were previously incarcerated while awaiting trial.
The time for transformative bond reform in Illinois is now! Join us as we bring an end to wealth-based pretrial incarceration and fight for true community safety through investment in our families and communities.
Who is the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice?
Current member organizations:
Access Living is a center of service, advocacy, and social change for people with disabilities led and run by people with disabilities. We provide critical services, and break down systemic barriers to create a stronger, more inclusive society. We envision a world free from barriers and discrimination- where disability is respected and people with disabilities are included and valued.
The American Civil Liberties Union is the nation’s foremost advocate of individual rights –- litigating, legislating and educating the public on a broad array of issues affecting individual freedom in the United States. The ACLU has affiliate offices in all fifty states staffed by professional and legal experts, as well as chapters of volunteer activists in many communities. ACLU of Champaign County is one of four ACLU chapters in Illinois and has over 2000 member households. Our steering committee works closely with the staff at ACLU of Illinois to defend and expand civil rights and civil liberties in Illinois, particularly in Champaign-Urbana, and to educate our community about civil liberties. We are pleased to work with our allies at Champaign County Bailout Coalition on this issue.
Alliance for Safety and Justice
Alliance for Safety and Justice (ASJ) is a multi-state organization that aims to replace over-incarceration with more effective public safety solutions rooted in crime prevention, community health, rehabilitation and support for crime victims. Focused on the largest states in the country, we partner with state leaders and advocates to achieve safety and justice reforms through advocacy, organizing, coalition building, research and communications.
AAAJC builds power through collective advocacy and organizing to achieve racial equity. We do this by developing grassroots leaders through base-building programs such as A Just Chi, connecting communities through coalition leadership,
getting out the vote, increasing participation, and growing our community’s power. We win campaigns by exercising our power and mobilizing community members to achieve racial equity.
Bend the Arc: Champaign Urbana
Bend the Arc:CU is a Jewish organization in Central Illinois that advocates for social, racial and religious equality. We collaborate with the interfaith community, immigration and refugee rights organizations, and human rights advocacy groups
Black Justice Project is a community organization in Peoria dedicated to fighting for Human Rights and equity of the Black community. The group has organized, among many other things, bail-outs for Mother’s and Father’s Day, a public forum for candidates for Peoria’s City Council to discuss police reform, social justice and other topics, and court support for people facing criminal charges.
Champaign County Bailout Coalition
To contribute to a safer and healthier community, CCBC helps to pay the bond of community members unable to afford it through grassroots fundraising. When an individual whose communities cannot afford to pay their bond contacts us for support, we put the funds donated by the larger Champaign County community toward their bail. They are then free to be with their communities in that moment of hardship and to arrange for their defense from a place of freedom. When the individuals’ trial has reached its conclusion, the donated money revolves back into our fund, and we put those recycled donations toward the bail amount of another person incarcerated in Champaign County jail. We also provide court date reminders to those individuals who we have bailed out.
Beyond our local work in Champaign County, CCBC also advocates for the elimination of money bail and pretrial incarceration at the state and national levels. Our local organizational network extends to the Cook County-based Coalition to End Money Bond, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, and the National Bail Fund Network. We do not believe that community bond funds are solutions. Our work is a temporary intervention in the larger coordinated grassroots effort to decarcerate society.
Change Peoria is a grassroots political organization which empowers people in the metropolitan Peoria area to develop accountable, transparent, and responsive governments for all by ensuring inclusivity, justice, and equity. Our methods include backing candidates, supporting issues, and educating the public
Chicago Democratic Socialists of America
Chicago DSA is an intersectional—feminist, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, etc.—organization that both educates Chicagoans about socialist values and policies and trains and mobilizes grassroots activists to build coalitions that move Chicago, the U.S. and the world toward a socialist future. In the near term, we work toward reforms that shift power and resources away from corporate elites and put them in the hands of ordinary citizens by campaigning locally for socialist policies and candidates and by establishing a diverse and continually expanding range of working groups to tackle Chicago’s various inequalities and injustices. In the long term, we fight for a world in which all people share equitably in creating and governing economic, political, and cultural institutions, as well as developing interpersonal and communal relationships.
As voices of faith, we call for an end to the War on Drugs which the United States has waged, at home and abroad, for over 47 years. This War has failed to achieve its stated objectives; deepened divisions between rich and poor, black, white, and brown; squandered over one trillion dollars; and turned our country into a “prisoner” nation.
The Coalition to Reduce Recidivism in Lake County
Our mission is to reduce recidivism by assisting people with criminal records in becoming productive members of the community. This mission will be accomplished by providing employment placement and supportive services that will enable people with criminal records to become self-sufficient.
We are social service organizations, educational institutions, medical institutions, criminal justice institutions, community advocates, and governmental entities to help better people with criminal records. We assist adults (residing in Lake County, IL) with felony or misdemeanor convictions.
Decarcerate BloNo
With the ongoing spirit of solidarity born out of the hard fought campaigns to successfully win a civilian oversight body over the Bloomington Police Department in 2017, as well as a “Welcoming City” ordinance in Normal in 2018, Decarcerate BloNo is an organizing table made up of grassroots leaders who serve in McLean County’s leading civil rights organizations. We educate our community on the harm caused by aggressive policing, punitive sentencing practices, and unfair pretrial detention. Confronting this injustice calls us to organize for systemic change, while pulling our community’s resources to free those held captive by cash bail.
Faith Coalition for the Common Good
Faith Coalition was founded in 2008, and incorporated as an Illinois not-for-profit organization in 2009 to address the injustices of racism and poverty in the central Illinois region. It was founded because a group of faith and community leaders believed in a vision for the common good. This vision is being realized, not through social service and charity, but through leadership training, relationship development, issue identification and public action. Faith Coalition is comprised of 35 congregations, non-profits and union labor organizations. It provides a means for members of religious congregations and community organizations to effectively participate in the political, environmental, social and economic decisions affecting their communities. The issue work or Faith Coalition focuses on workforce diversity and economic equity, reform of the criminal justice system, equitable education funding for all, civic engagement and immigration reform.
FirstFollowers began as a drop-in center in 2015. Through the good graces of Bethel AME Church we were provided with office space and facilities to meet with people coming home from prison and assist them in finding housing, employment and reconnecting to the community. Our intention was to both provide services and build an organization of formerly incarcerated people that could become a force for justice in our community. In December of 2015 we registered as a non-profit organization. We work on a peer mentoring model, believing that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.
The Illinois Prisoner Rights Coalition
The Illinois Prisoner Rights Coalition is a group of organizers, advocates, students, faith leaders, formerly incarcerated, and directly impacted members of our community. We advocate for justice and transparency for inmates being mistreated and neglected while incarcerated in the state of Illinois. We aim to improve conditions of confinement for people incarcerated across the state of Illinois through advocacy, public awareness, civic engagement, community education, legislation, and litigation.
Illinois Black Advocacy Initiative
In 2021, the Illinois Black Advocacy Initiative (IBAI) was founded due to the current heightened sense of urgency to create and advance a statewide Black Advocacy agenda in Illinois. Although catalyzed by the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black lives, the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Chicagoan Laquan McDonald and others have driven momentum. This Initiative acknowledges and builds upon a long pre-existing desire and early efforts to launch a unified agenda.
IL- NOW (National Organization for Women)
NOW is the largest, most comprehensive feminist advocacy group in the United States and one of the few multi-issue progressive grassroots organizations that has existed since its founding in 1966. NOW stands against all oppression, recognizing that racism, sexism, and classism are interrelated, that other forms of oppression such as homophobia and ableism work together with these three to keep power and privilege concentrated in the hands of a few. Both the actions NOW takes and its position on the issues are principled, uncompromising and often ahead of their time. NOW is a leader, not a follower, of public opinion.
The League of Women Voters of Illinois encourages informed and active participation in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy.
getting out the vote, increasing participation, and growing our community’s power. We win campaigns by exercising our power and mobilizing community members to achieve racial equity.
In 2021, the Illinois Black Advocacy Initiative (IBAI) was founded due to the current heightened sense of urgency to create and advance a statewide Black Advocacy agenda in Illinois. Although catalyzed by the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Black lives, the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Chicagoan Laquan McDonald and others have driven momentum. This Initiative acknowledges and builds upon a long pre-existing desire and early efforts to launch a unified agenda.
Continuing the legacy of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed who took the title of Spokesman for Human Salvation, Masjid Al-Taqwa, and its partner organizations, like Bridging The Gap, are promoting servant leadership, working toward human dignity, and excellence. We see our development and growth tied to a responsibility to work for the betterment of humanity as a whole by being a balanced and vibrant community calling society to express its human excellence.
Nikkei Uprising
Nikkei Uprising is a collective of Nikkei and Japanese folks in Chicago organizing against all forms of incarceration, from immigrant detention to prisons, with an abolitionist lens. We reject the narrative of the model minority myth, and seek to build solidarity with communities that have been directly impacted by incarceration and Japanese imperialism. We build community with other Nikkei invested in the liberation of all people, rooted in conversations that tie our own communities’ histories to incarceration and state violence.
Quad Cities DSA is a chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America based in Rock Island, Henry, and parts of Whiteside County in Illinois and Scott and Clinton County of Iowa. We are committed to building a multitendancy, intersectional, and highly democratic socialist movement comprised of working families here in the Quad Cities and throughout the country. Our local organizing is focused on multiple fronts, including housing justice and mutual aid. We fight for folx in our community who have been consistently oppressed and marginalized by the state and capitalism, and we work in solidarity with our comrades who share our goals of abolishing capitalism, white supremacy, the police, and the prison-industrial complex.
Quad Cities Interfaith (QCI) is a coalition of congregations and community groups that have come together to build local leadership and address issues in the Quad Cities region of Illinois and Iowa. QCI is a community of people living out our faith and values to collectively transform our society and bring about justice and human dignity locally and regionally. QCI works to improve the quality of life in our region by developing leaders in congregations and other institutions, so as to introduce our values into public dialogue and speak with a strong, unified voice in the decisions that affect our lives.
Peoria Coalition to End Money Bond
The Peoria Coalition to End Money Bond is comprised of Change Peoria, Black Justice Project, Peoria NAACP, Peoria ACLU, and other local leaders including Peter Kobak, Anthony Walrave, Jimena Lopez, and Hannah Ramlo. The Coalition is dedicated to promoting statewide reform efforts that change the way the bond system operates in Illinois, and helped with Peoria’s Father’s Day Bailout.
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC-IL)
A project of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Illinois Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC-IL) is locally-led and collectively organizing the Reform Jewish Movement state-wide to build a more just and compassionate Land of Lincoln for all.
Restore Justice trains and supports advocates, conducts research, nurtures partnerships, and develops policy solutions that will roll back the “tough on crime” policies of the past, replacing them with compassionate, smart, and safe policies for the future.
Founded in 1962, RUM (as Rockford Urban Ministries is affectionately known) is the outreach of 16 United Methodist and 4 other Churches. RUM works on social justice and new ministries. In its 50 years RUM has had four clergy directors. Since 1985, lay director Stanley Campbell has had the pleasure of doing the work of the Lord. RUM is housed at the non-profit fair trade store, JustGoods, 201 Seventh Street.
Students for Sensible Drug Policy – IL is a network of student chapters located at universities across the state, who are engaged in activism and community organizing towards meaningful drug policy reform. Throughout 2019, SSDP-IL promoted information about Illinois’ prospect of legalizing adult-use cannabis, as well as connected with elected officials to ensure the legalization legislation addressed issues related to racial & social justice, access to the industry, and environmental sustainability, among other principles. Since the passage of the law, SSDP-IL is working to promote resources about the new expungement process, know your rights information, and opportunities to be an entrepreneur in legal cannabis. Along with Cannabis reform, SSDP-IL has been coalition-building with a number of advocacy organizations towards goals like reclassifying simple drug possessions from felonies to non-criminal penalties, legalizing the services and resources provided by harm reduction organizations like Chicago Recovery Alliance, and promoting access to psychedelic medicines for various therapeutic services.
TASC (Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities) is committed to building a healthier, safer, and more just society through direct service, policy advocacy, and consulting. Our array of services in Illinois includes screening, assessment, client advocacy, linkage to care, substance use treatment, recovery support, and specialized case management. At local, state, and federal levels, TASC and its Center for Health and Justice support public policies that reduce incarceration and create healthier communities. We specialize in solutions related to pre-arrest diversion (PAD), sometimes called deflection or first responder diversion. PAD facilitates access to substance use and mental health treatment and other social services in lieu of arrest or following overdose reversal.
UCM is a powerful organization in East St. Louis committed to combating the root causes of systemic injustice in our region by uniting people of faith in transforming our communities. UCM is a group of pastors and church members from different congregations throughout the metro east area who work together on social justice issues. UCM is divided into 5 clusters or “groupings” of churches based on location. They include: Alton cluster, Granite City cluster, O’Fallon cluster, and East St. Louis cluster.UCM provides training and resources to help people uncover their power and come together to change their circumstances.
Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Network of Illinois
UUANI provides Unitarian Universalists across Illinois with advocacy and legislative leadership to effectively build community and power to promote justice and a healthy planet. We bring social justice into the heart of spiritual life of congregations and develop ways for church communities to live the UU principles. We help bridge communities and congregations and align spirituality with tangible actions to affect change.
Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois
UUPMI will equip UU’s in IL to transform institutions and support people harmed by the prison industrial complex. Our Unitarian Universalist principles call us to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person and to engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We want to engage those most in need of affirmation – the people locked up, often for very minor offenses, in Illinois prisons, who look to worship services for badly needed peace and solace. The UU Church of the Larger Fellowship serves 700 people in prison who deeply value our shared faith, and 260 people in Illinois prisons have pen pals through the GLBTQ group Black & Pink. The need is clear.
UCM is a powerful organization in East St. Louis committed to combating the root causes of systemic injustice in our region by uniting people of faith in transforming our communities. UCM is a group of pastors and church members from different congregations throughout the metro east area who work together on social justice issues. UCM is divided into 5 clusters or “groupings” of churches based on location. They include: Alton cluster, Granite City cluster, O’Fallon cluster, and East St. Louis cluster.UCM provides training and resources to help people uncover their power and come together to change their circumstances.
Unitarian Universalist Advocacy Network of Illinois
UUANI provides Unitarian Universalists across Illinois with advocacy and legislative leadership to effectively build community and power to promote justice and a healthy planet. We bring social justice into the heart of spiritual life of congregations and develop ways for church communities to live the UU principles. We help bridge communities and congregations and align spirituality with tangible actions to affect change.
Unitarian Universalist Prison Ministry of Illinois
UUPMI will equip UU’s in IL to transform institutions and support people harmed by the prison industrial complex. Our Unitarian Universalist principles call us to affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person and to engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. We want to engage those most in need of affirmation – the people locked up, often for very minor offenses, in Illinois prisons, who look to worship services for badly needed peace and solace. The UU Church of the Larger Fellowship serves 700 people in prison who deeply value our shared faith, and 260 people in Illinois prisons have pen pals through the GLBTQ group Black & Pink. The need is clear.
For more than 100 years, YWCA McLean County has been a constant force in the lives of families in our community. Through our programs, we work to eliminate racism, empower women, stand up for social justice, help families, and strengthen communities. YWCA is the oldest and largest multiracial women’s organization in the world. We have always been – and always continue to be – leaders for racial justice and women’s empowerment.
The Coalition to End Money Bond(A Just Harvest, ACLU of Illinois, Believers Bail Out, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, Chicago Community Bond Fund, Community Renewal Society, Illinois Justice Project, Justice and Witness Ministry of Chicago Metropolitan Association – Illinois Conference United Church of Christ, Nehemiah Trinity Rising, The Next Movement at Trinity UCC, The People’s Lobby, Shriver Center on Poverty Law, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, and Workers Center for Racial Justice)
The Coalition to End Money Bond formed in May 2016 as a group of member organizations with the shared goal of stopping the large-scale jailing of people simply because they were unable to pay a monetary bond. In addition to ending the obvious unfairness of allowing access to money determine who is incarcerated and who is free pending trial, the Coalition is committed to reducing the overall number of people in Cook County Jail and under pretrial supervision as part of a larger fight against mass incarceration. The Coalition to End Money Bond is tackling bail reform and the abolition of money bond as part of its member organizations’ larger efforts to achieve racial and economic justice for all residents of Cook County.
The Coalition to End Money Bond(A Just Harvest, ACLU of Illinois, Believers Bail Out, Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts, Chicago Community Bond Fund, Community Renewal Society, Illinois Justice Project, Justice and Witness Ministry of Chicago Metropolitan Association – Illinois Conference United Church of Christ, Nehemiah Trinity Rising, The Next Movement at Trinity UCC, The People’s Lobby, Shriver Center on Poverty Law, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, and Workers Center for Racial Justice)
The Coalition to End Money Bond formed in May 2016 as a group of member organizations with the shared goal of stopping the large-scale jailing of people simply because they were unable to pay a monetary bond. In addition to ending the obvious unfairness of allowing access to money determine who is incarcerated and who is free pending trial, the Coalition is committed to reducing the overall number of people in Cook County Jail and under pretrial supervision as part of a larger fight against mass incarceration. The Coalition to End Money Bond is tackling bail reform and the abolition of money bond as part of its member organizations’ larger efforts to achieve racial and economic justice for all residents of Cook County.