This week, President Donald Trump took aim at Illinois’ Pretrial Fairness Act , which ended cash bail in the state in 2023. Trump pledged to repeal the Act and deploy the national guard as an occupying police force in Chicago .

It’s no surprise that Trump used false claims and fearmongering to vilify the thoughtful pretrial reform law in Illinois. After all, the early success of this reform threatens a key deception Trump relies on for coalescing his power – that more people in cages will make us safer.

For some context, most people jailed in the United States, including in Colorado, are accused and not convicted of a crime and are in jail only because they cannot pay the money bail required for their freedom. Cash bail is a poverty test with dire consequences: poor people remain j

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