The news last Monday night was shocking: a young woman was set on fire on the Blue Line, in the Loop, by a man who poured a liquid onto her head and ignited it.  The report the next day was even worse: the suspect was already charged with another crime but merely released with an ankle bracelet for electronic monitoring, despite a long criminal history including arson in 2020.  As CWBChicago reports,

He is the 19th person accused of killing or trying to kill someone in Chicago this year while on felony pretrial release.

When the SAFE-T Act was passed in 2021, opponents often used hyperbolic language or made false claims about what the bill did: they said it would lead to a real-world “Purge” (the horror movie where all laws were suspended) or that criminals would be released from jail.  This made it all too easy for incumbents to deflect attacks by discrediting their election challengers and creating a false choice: without the SAFE-T Act, they say, anyone could be let out on bail, just by paying the money, regardless of how much of a danger that person would be to the community; now for the first time people who are dangerous can be denied release.

Finally, in the aftermath of the uproar over this terrible attack, Gov. Pritzker reportedly on Friday accepted that changes are needed, though the extent of his concession was for some “tweaks”:

Sometimes bills get passed and everybody that votes for it knows that there needs to be a trailer bill or a tweak that needs to be made afterward, so I think everybody is open to listening to what changes might need to be made.

So for those who want (or would grudgingly accept) “tweaks” as well as those who want to repeal the SAFE-T Act because there are systemic failures, here are three key reforms.

Reform #1:  prohibit judges from making pretrial release decisions based on an assumption that the suspect will follow a medication regimen for a diagnosed mental illness.

According to CWBChicago’s reporting, the suspect had an acknowledged mental illness for which he had been receiving treatment at MacNeal Hospital for 17 years and had been “working through . . . for 26 years.”  It appears from the reporting that at the time of the hearing granting him pretrial release for the prior assault, he was deemed to have been stabilized to the point that he would not commit another attack, because “he is now on proper levels of the medications he is on.”   Because of this level of confidence, he was not only granted pretrial release, but he was also given a wide degree of latitude by giving him 40 hours per week of free movement.

One presumes that the mental illness in question is schizophrenia, and, to be perfectly honest, as a mother of three young adults who are at or approaching the age when schizophrenia first manifests, reports of young adults seemingly getting settled into their adult lives and then having their lives turned upside down by their illness, hit me particularly hard.  But at the same time, I’ve read enough to know that it is foolish to believe that these individuals will simply, of their own will, remain compliant on their medications indefinitely.  The side effects are harsh, and the medications themselves are effective on only some of the symptoms (the “positive symptoms” such as hallucinations and delusions) and even then not 100%, and do not help with “negative” symptoms such as lack of motivation/apathy or social withdrawal or cognitive symptoms such as executive function.  It is a terrible disease.

But our sympathies with individuals affected by this or another mental illness must not lead to being willing to put others’ lives or safety at risk, whether it’s family members or unknown strangers.  According to other reports, Reed had been arrested an astounding 72 times.

I’ve seen multiple calls for the removal of the judge who granted him release in August, who at the time cynically said, “I can’t keep everybody in jail because the State’s Attorney wants me to.”  But the bottom line is that she should never have had the discretion to release him in this manner.  If any individual needs medication to reduce the risk of re-offending to an “acceptable” level, then the only possible way the law should permit release is with absolute certainty that the medication will be maintained, that is, with direct in-person supervision of daily medication use and immediate apprehension and detention upon the first failure instance.  Anything else is wishful thinking.

Reform #2: suspend pretrial release in any jurisdiction where there is a documented case of failed electronic monitoring (either in terms of its implementation or the decision-making preceding it).

Again, in the case of the CTA arson-attacker, the office of Chief Judge Timothy Evans was responsible for monitoring Reed, along with 3,191 other individuals.   As CWBChicago reports, despite the already generous free movement terms, Reed was known to have been violating his curfew repeatedly, but no actions were taken to enforce the curfew, let alone to revoke pretrial release due to these violations.  In fact, violations of curfew are merely compiled to be forwarded to the Assistant State’s Attorney, so as to determine, without any particular urgency, whether changes might be made.

Again according to CWBChicago,

In April, after Evans’ office assumed responsibility for the countywide electronic monitoring program, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke told her staff in a memo that the chief judge’s office was not prepared for the job, making the program “a serious threat to public safety.”

This is unacceptable.  The law must be reformed to remove the ability to manage a pretrial release program from government entities which cannot properly do so, and only return it under strict oversight.

And, yes, I know that supporters of, as they say, “justice-involved individuals” will say it’s unfair to detain individuals solely because their jurisdiction cannot manage electronic monitoring properly.  But it’s necessary for public safety.

Reform #3: revise the law to restrict the circumstances in which suspects can be released pre-trial; similarly, reduce the list of non-detainable offenses.

This is where the details end.

I am neither a lawyer nor an expert in the field, but it is simply common sense that CWBChicago couldn’t have compiled their long list of recidivist pretrial release-ees without failures in the process.

For example, earlier this month, Talen McChriston was charged with firing 32 rounds at a car after being shot at, and it turns out he was on electronic monitoring for another case for illegally possessing three guns and a stolen car.  The report doesn’t specify (and I am not expert enough myself to know) whether illegally possessing guns is defined as a non-detainable crime, or whether the judge decided he was not a risk to the community.

In another instance, Derek Rucker, one of the “Loop Puncher” attackers, was charged for one attack in early September, then given pretrial release, then attacked another woman while on pretrial release.  Again, it’s not clear whether the law’s provisions on detainable offenses, or a judge’s individual decision on release, was the failure point here.

Either way, it’s not enough to complain about individual judges, or the policies of prosecutors in individual counties. It’s time to reform the SAFE-T Act to ensure this ends.