Lawmakers Must Deliver on Pretrial Reform Fixes

For years in Lansing, Democrats and Republicans have worked together on criminal justice reform – work that continues today with a package of crucial pretrial reform bills (House Bills 4655-56 and 4658-61) still awaiting passage. To further improve safety and fairness, Michigan must pass these bills. But with only a few days remaining on the legislative calendar, time is running out. 

Pretrial reform efforts are grounded in strengthening due process and upholding the presumption of innocence – cornerstones of our legal system. Without these principles, we cannot ensure that everyone is innocent until proven otherwise and treated equally under the law. 

But under the broken status quo of the current process, countless Michiganders experience a two-tiered system of justice – one for the wealthy and another for everyone else. In turn, they are subjected to unnecessary pretrial incarceration, often because they can’t afford to pay bail. The process becomes the punishment, with fundamental rights upended. Not only is this unfair, it is effectively a system of wealth-based detention. It’s no wonder the state’s lawmakers are focused on fixing this during the current legislative session. 

The history behind these bills goes back to 2019, when Gov. Whitmer established a task force that brought together local law enforcement, judges, bipartisan lawmakers, advocates, and academics to study the state’s growing jail population. What they found was troubling: over the past 40 years, Michigan’s jail population had tripled, and of the 16,000 people in jail on any given day, approximately half had not been convicted of a crime. Many were behind bars simply because they couldn’t afford cash bail. 

The task force recommended wholesale changes to the state’s criminal justice system, which were partially addressed in December 2020, when a Republican-led legislature passed a package of 20 reforms that made a huge difference, but left unaddressed recommendations targeting the broken pretrial system. Now, four years later, the legislature has the opportunity to finish the job by passing this long-overdue pretrial package.

The reforms before the Michigan legislature are not unorthodox: efforts to reform states’ pretrial systems have been underway for decades, with notable successes and positive impacts on public safety in nearly two dozen jurisdictions. Crime declined after Illinois completely eliminated the use of cash bail. Detroit safely mitigated the harms of wealth-based detention, with crime similarly unaffected. In Harris County, Texas the entire criminal justice system shrunk after pretrial reforms. These are practical, commonsense reforms that make communities safer in the long run.

Pretrial reforms are popular, too. Nearly three-quarters of Michiganders say we shouldn’t jail people pretrial for nonviolent offenses. Nearly two-thirds say it’s important to reduce the state’s jail and prison populations – and that’s exactly what this package does. House Bills 4655-56 will create a fairer pretrial system by limiting the harms imposed by cash bail on people charged with nonviolent low-level offenses. Meanwhile, it emboldens judges to make individual determinations to deploy a range of pretrial interventions that address concerns about public safety or flight, even for those accused of nonviolent misdemeanors. These are moderate, but meaningful reforms that ensure that safety, not wealth, drives pretrial decisionmaking.

After years of research, feedback, and refinement by a range of stakeholders, the package’s bipartisan sponsors have designed these bills to meet the specific needs of Michiganders. Forged through collaboration, these reforms are a vital next step towards a justice system that Michiganders can believe in. By leaning into the pragmatic policies outlined in HBs 4655-56 and 4658-61 and demonstrating that they are serious about safety, lawmakers can pave the way towards a more just Michigan. 

Now is the time to turn these bills into law.

This op-ed originally appeared in the Detroit News.