By Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – State Senator Jason Barickman is calling Gov. Pritzker’s Safe-T Act, which abolishes cash bail, an “overreach.”

“There were reforms that I think could have been made and where necessary within the criminal justice system. But, the overreach here, led by Governor Pritzker, really has done some significant damage to the criminal justice system.”

In 2021, Gov. Pritzker signed the bill, authored by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus and approved by the Illinois General Assembly.

“It boils down to things like whether a judge and a prosecutor can hold people who are potentially dangerous to the public,” the Bloomington Republican told WJBC’s, Scott Miller. “And it gets into the real legalities of what those rules are, but it’s going to skew things more in favor of the accused, and by doing so, the concern is that it’s going to put some of these people back on the street sooner than they would have otherwise would have been and that’s going to make the public less safe.”

Citing an uptick in crime across the country, State Senator Barickman said the Safe-T Act is a bill in the other direction.

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].