In a move that will make legal and political waves, Cook County Board President Tony Preckwinkle and four members of her board kicked off a campaign aimed at vastly reducing the use of bail in pending criminal cases here, especially for nonviolent offenses.

Joined by fellow commissioner and former mayoral hopeful Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, the county chief announced a public hearing next month on whether people are being jailed largely "because they can't afford to pay" rather than because they pose a danger.

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The hearing likely will put pressure on Tim Evans, the chief judge of Cook County Circuit Court and an occasional rival to Preckwinkle, to get bond court judges to issue more I-bonds and the like.

Preckwinkle said she did not consult with Evans before today's announcement. His office had no immediate comment.

According to Preckwinkle and Garcia, the hearing, set for Nov. 17 on the fifth floor of the county building, is in response to a suit filed a few days ago that alleges racial and other discrimination in how the county operates its criminal prosecution system.

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Substantial evidence exists that African-American and Latino alleged offenders are more likely than whites to be held behind bars while they await trial, Garcia said.

"We are going to try to figure out what's happening and investigate," he said, saying that the hearing will take testimony from criminal justice experts, some offenders who have been held because they couldn't make bail and judges from other jurisdictions.

"Pretrial detention is an incredible burden on our budget," said Preckwinkle, with taxpayers spending $162 a day to hold prisoners in the Cook County Jail, many of them accused only of nonviolent offenses. "Setting a very high bail figure is unfair to those being held and their families, and costly to us.”

Preckwinkle has pushed strongly for criminal justice reform in her tenure, urging alternatives to jail for drug offenders. She has had some success, with the jail's daily population down about 25 percent from its peak and some judges using a new standard in reviewing requests for bail.

But, she added, "We need to know by judge and by case how that tool is being applied.”

Another sponsoring commissioner, North Sider John Fritchey, suggested that some judges set high bail because they're worried of a backlash if they make a mistake and release the wrong person.

"A lot of judges don't want to be the Willie Horton judge," Fritchey said, referring to a notorious 1986 case in which a Massachusetts inmate out on a weekend furlough raped a woman. The incident was turned into a political ad that helped sink Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis' campaign for president. "But we're not talking about releasing people who are a danger.”

"People are being warehoused," said West Side Commissioner Richard Boykin. "That should not happen in a civilized society."

Also backing the call for a hearing was a suburban Republican, Pete Silvestri.

Garcia said the hearing could lead to changes in policy at the circuit court level, or to changes in the state's bail law. "The bail statute in Illinois actually isn't that bad," he said. "It's the application of the statute.”

Asked if the county could end up deciding to impose no bail at all in some cases, Garcia said he'd await the outcome of the hearing.