Advocates of the SAFE-T Act say the law is not to blame for the arson attack of a Chicago train passenger, and that the arrest record of the man charged with the attack shows the cash bail system didn’t work.

Lawrence Reed, 50, of Chicago, has been charged with a federal terrorism offense for allegedly setting Bethany MaGee, 26, on fire, on Nov. 17 while the two were passengers inside a Chicago Transit Authority train.

MaGee suffered severe burns in the attack. Her family has established a GoFundMe on her behalf.

Reed has been arrested 72 times since he was 18, The Associated Press reported. At the time of MaGee’s attack, Reed had been on pretrial release and electronic monitoring after he was charged with aggravated battery of a hospital social worker.

The incident has led to another round of criticism of the SAFE-T Act from Republican elected officials and law enforcement leaders.

In a statement, Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey said the SAFE-T Act “ripped away” the ability of judges to keep people jailed with the “absurd and reckless structure of ‘nondetainable offenses.’”

“If an offense is serious enough to arrest someone for, it is serious enough for a judge to consider detention. Period,” according to Downey’s statement.

Reed’s pretrial detention was considered and denied by a Cook County judge in August when he was charged with aggravated battery, according to CWB Chicago, an independent news site focused on tracking crime in Chicago.

Downey called for the elimination of “nondetainable offenses” and the reinstatement of cash bail.

On Wednesday, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice said its hearts go out to MaGee and her family, who “experienced an unimaginable horror.”

But the organization said critics are wrong to blame the Pretrial Fairness Act, a provision of the SAFE-T Act that eliminated cash bail in 2023.

“In this case, the Pretrial Fairness Act actually allowed the prosecutor the option to seek detention and for the judge to consider detaining Mr. Reed while he awaited trial. It’s hard to see how one could conclude that this tragedy is evidence that we should return to the old money bond system,” according to the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice.

Cook County prosecutors had objected to Reed’s pretrial release during an Aug. 22 detention hearing in his aggravated battery case, according to a CWB Chicago report on a transcript of the court hearing.

Prosecutors notified Cook County Judge Teresa Molina-Gonzalez of Reed’s criminal background, which included an alleged arson in 2020 in Chicago, according to CWB Chicago. A public defender argued that Reed should not be jailed because he needed services for his mental illness.

Molina-Gonzalez placed Reed on electronic monitoring, which prosecutors opposed, and the judge reportedly told them, “I can’t keep everybody in jail because the state’s attorney wants me to,” according to CWB Chicago.

The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice said Reed’s past arrests and releases “almost all occurred under the money bond system,” which demonstrates the “old system – not the new one – didn’t work.”

“Before, judges set money bonds without meaningful hearings. In the vast majority of cases, prosecutors had no chance to argue for denial of release and detention. The Pretrial Fairness Act fixed those problems,” according to the organization.

Asked about the SAFE-T Act during a Nov. 21 news conference, Gov. JB Pritzker said it is the “judgment” of elected judges that “ultimately determines in most cases whether somebody is released or not.”

“And it’s a better way, by the way, than bail, because bail is sort of an automatic out for people who just happen to have enough money, and [it’s] an automatic incarceration for somebody who happens not to have enough money,” Pritzker said.

Pritzker said he was open to amendments in the law, noting that he thinks “everybody is open to listening to what changes might need to be made.”