A Republican state lawmaker has joined Central Illinois law enforcement in calling for changes to the state's landmark criminal justice reform bill called the SAFE-T Act, but Democrats want to wait for more data before making a decision.
State Rep. Dennis Tipsword, who is a Woodford County deputy sheriff running to be the county's top law enforcement officer, wants to see changes in how domestic violence charges are handled in court. He introduced a bill shifting the burden of proof regarding pretrial detention in cases involving domestic violence and orders of protection.
“It would shift the burden to the defendant, and the defendant would have to talk to that judge and tell that judge that they're not a threat to society, and they are not a flight risk,” Tipsword said.
The Pretrial Fairness Act is part of the 2023 SAFE-T Act that focused on pretrial detention and getting rid of cash bail in Illinois.
Under the Pretrial Fairness Act, prosecutors must file a detention order for all felony domestic violence cases in which someone is physically abused or threatened and violations of protection orders. Tipsword's bill proposes shifting the burden of proof to defendants. Instead of prosecutors proving a defendant should be detained, it would be on the defendant to prove that he/she shouldn't.
Tipsword, representing a rural area north of Peoria and Bloomington-Normal, said this would not interfere with “innocent until proven guilty” because it would still be up to the judge to make the final decision.
“It's no different than we had bond in the past. You had a judge decided what your bond was, it has nothing to do with guilt or innocence,” Tipsword said.
Tipsword said he agrees with cashless bonds but wants to see more detentions to curb repeat offenders.
According to the Office of Statewide Pretrial Services which collects data on monitored pretrial cases for each county, 12% of criminal cases in Woodford County were issued failure to appear warrants starting in January 2025 to present. The data sets are compiled when a county joins the office.
By contrast, the 11th judicial circuit has issued failure to appear warrants 8% of the time. The five-county region includes Woodford County's data starting in 2025 and the rest starting in September 2023, adding McLean County in November 2024.
Tipsword said he has concerns that the Pretrial Fairness Act is not detaining people who are a potential flight risk. He added this can use court resources that not every county has.
“That courtroom is still tied up waiting for this defendant to walk in for that court date, and they don't show up. So we've just wasted all that time, all that resource, tied up that courtroom for nothing,” Tipsword said.
Other efforts
Tipsword is among several law enforcement officials pushing for changes to pretrial detention. McLean County Sheriff Matt Lane and Peoria County Sheriff Chris Watkins have similarly pushed for judges to have more agency to detain defendants.
Watkins has voiced his concern about repeat offenders and failures to appear for court dates. Watkins wants cash bail for low level offenses to ensure people will show up to their court date and get resources that jails provide.
Bloomington Police Chief Jamal Simington said he wants to make sure that violent criminals are detained. Simington said Illinois lawmakers need to work with law enforcement to make sure the law does not allow violent criminals on the street before their trial.
“[The goal] is to enhance safety and not have recidivism, repeat offenders preying on members of our community. So we'll continue to stay the course there and meet with legislators to let them know,” Simington said.
Senate Republican Leader John Curran, a former Cook County prosecutor, has introduced a bill similar to Tipsword’s bill, that would shift the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the defendant when they are seeking pretrial release after being charged with violating an order of protection.
Curran's legislation would apply to civil no contact orders, stalking no contact orders and domestic battery arrests.
“The burden should be on the offender to prove to a judge that they are not an imminent threat to the victim or to the public in general,” Curran said at a press conference last month.
Curran said the bill is focused on one part of the SAFE-T Act and would give more time to the victims to start the recovery process.
Dakota Sebring, a domestic violence survivor from Menard County, said in her case, the abuser violated an order of protection multiple times but was only put in jail for a few days every time it was violated.
“Current law leaves a burden on victims to continue to prove the danger of what's being done to them, and to have to face these repeated violations over and over again,” Sebring said.
Sebring said she's called the police 15 times in the past year about protective order violations.
Sebring said she wants to continue working with state lawmakers so the repeated breaking of orders of protections stops and puts abusers behind bars.
Democratic lawmaker and advocacy organizations
Others are adopting a "wait and see" posture before supporting changes to pretrial detention.
Democratic state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth, representing Peoria, said cashless bonds have not changed the system, but have made it harder for people who are detained to buy their freedom.
“You had a lot of men prior to the act that were able to buy their freedom, regardless of their heinous crimes, towards their partner, towards their spouse, towards their children,” Gordon-Booth said.
Gordon-Booth said the Pretrial Fairness Act gives more authority to the judges to determine if someone should be detained.
“In this system, what we're saying is that we are going to trust the judges to make a determination about detainment, not wealth,” she said.
Gordon-Booth said she is still waiting for more data before supporting a bill to change the Pretrial Fairness Act.
Jennifer Welch, Chief of Policy at Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence [ICADV], said they are currently not focused on changing the Pretrial Fairness Act and would need more information before pushing for any changes.
Welch said ICADV is focused on a bill that would update the Domestic Violence Act by expanding orders of protection to social media.
“All of the ways that abusers use technology to hurt domestic violence victims, things like hiding tracking devices in a victim's car, or using shared services to continue to harass or harm a victim,” Welch said.
Welch said they also want to give more resources to domestic violence victims to help them through the courts.
Matthew McLoughlin, campaign coordinator for Illinois Network of Pretrial Justice, said the Pretrial Fairness Act has not led to an increase in crime but the data is not out to truly show the effects of the Pretrial Fairness Act.
“I think we need to be spending more time looking at implementation in counties across the state and getting a better understanding of how each county is implementing the law,” McLoughlin said, “What's working in one place that might need to be implemented in another.”
McLoughlin said cases can vary depending on the country because in some cases the prosecutor and judge have a lot of discretion on how to proceed.
McLoughlin said there needs to be more data before they think about changing the Pretrial Fairness Act because they do not want to create more issues with the solution.
The current data
David Olson, co-director of the Loyola Center for Criminal Justice, collects data on the SAFE-T Act. Olson said his team are still collecting data and it is too early to make an overall conclusion about the effects of cashless bail.
“It varies a lot from county to county as to whether or not people charged with crimes that are eligible for detention have detention sought, and whether judges impose detention,” Olson said.
Olson said there were differences between counties even before the Pretrial Fairness Act and there still needs to be more data to give a definitive answer on how successful the law is.
Olson said one of those data points is the time judges spend on hearings about detention. He added now judges spend more time on each case, unlike before the Pretrial Fairness Act.
“The prosecutor and the defense attorney would raise issues, and the judge would generally, state a dollar amount without any detailed explanation about why they were picking that dollar amount,” Olson said.
According to the Center of Criminal Justice, prosecutors are not required to file a detention order for domestic violence cases that are misdemeanors but if there is a case involving physical abuse, making it a felony, prosecutors have to file for detention.
The Center of Criminal Justice has data on four counties Cook, Dupage, Kane and McHenry showing the amount of detention petitions filed ranged from 16% to 53% and less than 50% of all those detention petitions were granted.
This only accounts for people charged with domestic violence, not a violation of a protection order. Prosecutors must file a motion to detain if someone violates a protection order.
Olson said a lot of counties initially saw their detention numbers go down after the passing of the Pretrial Fairness Act, but have since increased back to before the law was passed.
McLean County saw 180 people detained in the first year of the law, down from 210, but the next year the number of people detained increased to 206.
Notifications of detention
Madeleine Behr, deputy director of policy at the Network, said the SAFE-T Act requires notifications throughout the legal process to help survivors make informed decisions.
Behr said these notifications were a key part when they were advocating for the Pretrial Fairness Act.
“One of the requirements that we built in is notification of every court hearing, including what we formerly called Bond hearings,” Behr said.
Behr is also waiting for more data to be released before pushing for any legislation to change the Pretrial Fairness Act.
“What we don't have, though, for example, is data collection tracking to make sure that those notifications are happening,” Behr said.
Behr said Illinois does not have data from every county and there needs to be more effort put into getting that data.
Behr said there needs to be more focus on the implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act, but there does not need to be any changes to the language of the law.
“We changed parts of that statute. We didn't change the ability for police officers to continue investigating violations. We need a cultural shift and how they approach those survivors,” Behr said.
Behr said the police need to do more investigations into protection orders when they are violated.
Behr said implementation can vary depending on the county because prosecutors, Judges and police investigations are what decide if a person is detained.
