CENTRAL ILLINOIS (WCIA) -- Thursday marked two years since the end of cash bail in Illinois following the state Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the SAFE-T Act.

The rule means people arrested can no longer post a cash bond to be released before their trial. Instead, a judge decides if the person poses a risk to the community to be detained or released before their first court appearance.

“It's more realistically weighing the risk of, 'Will you come back to court?'” Champaign County Sheriff Dustin Heuerman said. “Sometimes, people were accused of pretty bad crimes but they had access to a lot of money, so they were able to get out of jail.”

Heuerman was in favor of some aspects of the law when it went into effect in 2023. He added since then, his jail has seen drastically fewer inmates

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