Carolyn Williams has been taking care of her nephew's daughter for months. That's because her nephew is incarcerated.
"And even though the violation seemed to be pretty minor, he didn't have money to bond out," Williams said.
Williams came to the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Rockford recently to learn about how bond works in Illinois from Chicago's Community Bond Fund or the CCBF.
"I think it's an unfair system that, if you have the money and you can afford the bond out, you're pretty much free to carry on...as usual," she said. "But on the other hand, if you don't, then your whole life has changed not just for you but for your relatives and friends."
The U.S. has over 2 million peopleimprisoned, thehighest ratein the world. Statistics showmost who are incarcerated are men. And data from the Bureau of Justice last year shows black and brown people are overrepresented in U.S. prisons despite making up a smaller percentage of the overall population.
Dick Rundall, a member of advocacy group Eliminate Racism 815, said conversations about criminal justice systems affect certain communities more than others.
"People of color are much more likely to be poor, and therefore much more likely to not be able to afford bail, even for a very minor offense," Rundall said. "And secondarily, there often are racial disparities due to -- sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious -- bias, and so more people of color are also picked up."
Many people await their trials from jail unless they can post bond set by a judge. Some bond money is meant to be returned depending on the trial's outcome. But putting people in jail because they can't pay while they're presumed innocent is bad for the community, say advocates like the CCBF.
"We came together with the goal of ending money bond and pretrial incarceration in Cook County. As time has passed, we've expanded our goal and are looking at the whole state," said Matthew McLoughlin with the CCBF. The group also works with the Coalition To End Money Bond.
"It's very hard to get information [about bond practices in Illinois]," said Sharlyn Grace, an organizer with the Chicago group.
Grace said there needs to be more transparency in data from inside the penal system like jails and prisons.
90 percent of those in Illinois' jails are imprisoned before they've been convicted of a crime, and more than 260,000 residents are jailed pretrial every year. The CCBF said this stops people from working and taking care of their families, and bills taxpayers because it costs money to jail someone overnight.
The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority echoes these points. They note pretrial incarceration doesn't help keep people from returning to the criminal justice system.A state advisory council found if the recidivism rate stays the same, it'll cost taxpayers 13 billion over the next few years.
Ron Jacobson, a retired judge from Lee County, said court officials are also thinking about solutions to these concerns. He spoke from the audience:
"I can't tell you how difficult it is to sit on the bench and make a decision about what kind of bail a person should have, knowing the impact is going to have on that person in the family and the community."
Jacobson says he knows judges all over the state care about improving court systems.
“I encourage discussion and working in this area. It's not an easy answer. I'm just telling you that because we deserve to have safe communities," he said.
On an average 2019 day, more than 750 people can be found in the Winnebago County Jail. It's the second largest jail in the state. Recently, state inspectors calledWinnebago's jail understaffed. Kenneth Copeland, the pastor at New Zion, wants to see problems like that change.
"One way we could deal with it, instead of arguing about taxes, or budgets, and all those types of things, is deal with the real issue," Copeland said. "Why are some people in jail who don't even need to be there because they have not been adjudicated guilty? And the only reason they are there is because they cannot afford the bail that has been levied against them?"
Copeland pointed to the high rate of incarceration in the country as motivation for change.
"When we talk politically about crime, the current dialogue is, 'Are you hard on crime or soft on crime?' But the real question is, 'Are you smart on crime?' And these issues, like bond reform, really ought to impact those of us who are willing to think and figure out what actually will make us safer," he said.
Copeland said he and Rebecca White Newgren, the senior pastor at Rockford's Second First Church, have been working to see if their faith groups can make a sustainable bond fund for the local community to use if they need financial help.
"Jesus said, 'Let the captives go free.'" said White Newgren. "And so we really need to take that seriously and look into how can we let these people -- who don't really deserve, and are not a threat to our society -- how can we bring them home to their families, and to their jobs, and to be the productive members of society that they yearn to be?"
The Illinois Supreme Court created a Commission On Pretrial Practices in 2017 to look into changing how court systems affect those waiting for trials. The Commission is currently holding public meetings around the state to hear how pretrial practices affect everyday people. Advocates say community costs are high when court practices are based on wealth.
"The presumption of innocence is supposed to be at the foundation of our criminal legal system," said the CCBF's McLoughlin. "Currently, access to wealth is determining who gets to walk free and who's being incarcerated pretrial. The access to money should not determine whether or not somebody sits in a cage for months, and potentially years, while they're awaiting trial."
And back in Winnebago County's jail, down the street from Copeland's church, a$50 feeon top of their original bond stands between the jail and the streets of Rockford.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled the names Sharlyn Grace and Matthew McLoughlin.
