Kendall County Times

Kendall County State’s Attorney Eric Weis discussed the ramifications of the Illinois SAFE-T Act which abolished cash bail. The comments were made on a recent episode of Dan Proft’s Chicago Morning Answer show.  

“Those (perpetrators) are out automatically if they’re not seeking detention, they’re going to other counties and committing new crimes,” Weis said. “We’re seeing more repeat offenders.. on cases that we cannot detain.”

“It’s like a war of attrition. If we just keep imposing more and more obstacles to hold somebody, or to get them back into custody, prosecutors will just give up at some point and let everybody out,” he said. “We’re seeing more from outside of our county than there were in the past. We’re seeing much more from the Cook County area than we have in the last few years.”

"It just continues to come this direction, and it’s only been a few months."

The SAFE-T Act was originally passed in 2021, eliminating pretrial cash bail and preventing judges from ordering individuals charged with a crime to pay money, known as bail, in order to secure their pretrial release.  

Weis was sworn into his fifth term as State’s Attorney for Kendall County in 2020; he was elected to his first term in 2006. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from North Central College and his law degree from Northern Illinois University. He currently resides in Yorkville.