The movement for pretrial justice is celebrating a huge win: On July 18th, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in our favor, declaring in the strongest possible language that the Pretrial Fairness Act is constitutional and took effect on September 18.

The racist and unfair money bond system has destabilized communities by pulling people from their homes—away from their loved ones, jobs, doctors appointments, and more—simply because they could not afford to purchase their freedom.

With this ruling, we can finally implement the new system laid out in the Pretrial Fairness Act, which makes release the norm and detention the carefully limited exception and take a critical step towards creating safer communities for all Illinoisans.

This victory was only possible because of the actions that thousands of everyday people across Illinois took over the past seven years.

While we have already beaten back several rounds of attacks, we know the fight isn’t over. When implementation begins, those looking to undermine the law will once again try to roll back our win in the legislature.

We need to make sure legislators know we continue to support the Pretrial Fairness Act, ask them to stay strong when the next round of attacks surfaces, and let them know we have their backs.