EM Program to Shift Towards Program Run by Judge’s Office
In another update to the ongoing saga of changes the Safe-T Act has had on the legal system, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart announced that his agency would be phasing out their Electronic Monitoring (“EM”) program in the new year, citing changes in the law that leave his office unable to run the EM program safely and effectively. The program, which currently monitors over 1,530 people who were released pending the outcome of their case but placed on monitoring, will stop accepting new detainees starting April 1, 2025, but will continue to monitor people already placed on the program until all those cases are resolved. Pointing to reforms from the Safe-T Act, which included two days of what he deems “free movement” for people on monitoring programs to supposedly take care of health and household chores, Dart believes that he can no longer effectively run his EM program. “It was abundantly clear with the way the laws have been changed that I just didn’t feel that I could, you know, safely run this program anymore,” Dart said in a recent interview, adding at a separate county budget hearing, “Certainly when I have 100-plus people charged with murder and attempted murder on EM, I can’t imagine how [the reforms] were thoughtful.” Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans said that the courts may shift additional detainees its current GPS monitoring system for specific detainees, which currently has roughly 2,000 detainees enrolled in the program that is similar to the EM program but is run through the Chief Judge Evans’ office. However, there are logistical and budgetary concerns expressed by Evans, given that Dart’s EM program employs roughly double the staff as his office’s GPS program, and has signaled that the Administrative Office of the Courts, an arm of the Illinois Supreme Court, currently handles the EM enrollment for over 80 other counties after the passage of the Pretrial Fairness Act. Still Evans admits that “[O]ur judges are very concerned about” the impending end of the Sheriff’s Office EM program. With such uncertainty, it is possible that judges will be hesitant to release some individuals conditioned on participation in an EM program until they have faith any new system can adequately address the safety risks that might be posed to the general public. If there is a lag in the ability to effectively order electronic monitoring as a condition of release, the public can expect a substantial increase in the detention of defendants and a continual flurry of contentious detention hearings at every court date of the detained causing a time burden to court calls and a drain on other resources.