Letter to Elected Officials on Cash Bail

This template was written during the summer of 2020 as part of a letter-writing campaign.

Dear [INSERT NAME OF ELECTED OFFICIAL],

My name is Eddie Ryan and I am a constituent of yours in Illinois. In the wake of the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, action is desperately needed to eradicate the systemic racism within our criminal justice system that has led to the deaths of these three and countless other black Americans and People of Color. We need this moment of national fervor to serve as the impetus for significant criminal justice reform in the state of Illinois.

The cash bail system is one of the most devastating and unjust components of the criminal justice system today. Of the roughly two million people incarcerated in the United States, nearly 500,000 are detained without having been convicted of a crime simply because they cannot afford to pay bail. The national median bail cost is $10,000, with this figure depending greatly on the level of the offense as well as the jurisdiction of imprisonment. For those living paycheck to paycheck, this cost is staggering. This results in many legally innocent people remaining behind bars, driving up the United States pretrial incarceration figure, and targeting low-income People of Color at highly disproportionate rates.

I call on you to push for an end to the practice of cash bail in Illinois. Lawmakers in California have already passed a bill to end cash bail: SB-10 (2017–2018), which concerns pretrial release or detention services. This legislation calls for the elimination of cash bail and its replacement with an individual Pretrial Risk Assessment service conducted by a judge. This essentially holds that those who have been deemed low- or medium- risk offenders, or those who have committed misdemeanors and even non-violent felonies, can be released on recognizance with no monetary fee whatsoever. Similar reform in New Jersey since 2017 has led to a precipitous decline in pretrial incarceration with roughly no change in crime rates or hearing attendance rates.

Governor Pritzker has already stated his intent to eliminate cash bail, noting that it “disproportionately forces low-income people of color into a destructive cycle of unearned detention and instability” (Hauck, USA Today). Please support the efforts that groups like the Coalition to End Money Bond are championing, introduce and support legislation to end the cash bail system, and encourage Governor Pritzker to do the same.

Thank you for your time and consideration in reading this email.

Sincerely,

Eddie Ryan