I bet you have never heard of this law before, but it is extremely controversial and nerve-wracking for the American population and the state of Illinois. It is a part of the SAFE-T Act passed by the Illinois government in 2021 in order to end systematic racism in the criminal justice system. As a part of the SAFE-T Act, they also passed the Pretrial Fairness Act (also referred to as “The Purge Law”) which is aimed at completely eliminating cash bail and pretrial detention for criminal offenses such as second-degree murder, robbery, burglary, arson, kidnapping, and aggravated battery.  

Illinois is known as one of the top 3 states with democratic party views and liberal social views alongside New York and California. They are very progressive and push for more of a social change for situations and ideas. The “Purge” Law as they call it does not require people of criminal offenses listed above to be detained pretrial. However, the judge can still deny pretrial release if he or she feels as though this person is a specific and real threat to society. Although the media claims that this “Purge Law” will cause everyone to commit tons of criminal offenses and get off completely free, this is just simply not true. The idea of the Purge was brought forth by the Republican party in Illinois who was challenging the idea of Governor J.B. Pritzker. Senator Darren Bailey was the main person who challenged these ideas of Pritzker.  

Now, everyone may have some different feelings about this topic because it does involve giving more freedom in the justice system of Illinois, which already contains some dangerous U.S. cities in terms of violence and crime rate. You would think that there would be more safety precautions and rules in the justice system, but it seems as if Illinois wants to release some of those rules. But no matter how you view this story, just remember not to believe everything that you hear or see without doing your own research first, and that goes for anything. This article probably didn’t turn out like you imagined it would, so lesson learned, do your research! We will continue to stay up to date on this information and see if anything else comes up about “The Purge Law” in the future!