CHICAGO (WLS) -- It's been two years since Illinois became the first state to eliminate bond money as a condition for pre-trial release.

The anniversary comes as some Republican lawmakers are fighting to repeal or alter the Pre-Trial Fairness Act.

For decades, "cash" controlled whether a person charged with a crime would sit in jail before trial or wait it out at home.

"If you're a danger to the public, you shouldn't be able to buy your way out of jail like a Jeffrey Epstein type, while at the same time, if you're not a danger to the public, you do not need to be incarcerated before you're found guilty," Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke said.

Removing cash from the decision to detain someone is the foundation of Illinois' two-year-old Pre-Trial Fairness Act. The law says State's Attorneys must file a petition to detain someone. A judge makes the determination. Any crime that carries a mandatory prison sentence are all eligible for detention.

"Any forcible felony which includes things like robbery or sex offenses, illegal possession of firearm, domestic battery which accounts for about half of all cases eligible for detention," said Professor David Olson, Loyola University Loyola Center for Criminal Justice co-chair.

In Cook County, State's Attorney O'Neill Burke also includes violent crimes committed on the CTA , all child pornography cases and anyone found with an assault weapon. Overseeing the nation's second largest prosecutor's office, O'Neill Burke says the the Pre-Trial Fairness Act is working.

"If you look at our crime numbers, we can all agree that crime has gotten significantly better in Cook County, and that is with the SAFE-T Act, our numbers are now in line with all other major cities," O'Neill Burke said.

However, many Illinois Republican lawmakers disagree. Some are calling to repeal the law or tweak it to give judges more discretion.

"We're seeing individuals who are charged with serious violent crimes being allowed to walk out of county jails with no cash bail, sometimes they same day they are arrested and reoffending while they are on pre-trial release," said Illinois State Rep. Patrick Windhorst, (R) House Minority Floor Leader.

While there have been cases of someone reoffending, researchers at Loyola University's Criminal Justice & Criminology Department have found those situations rare.

Tracking the two-year-old law, Professor Olson says most people accused of a violent offense have been detained before trial.

"Most people charged with crimes before passage of this law were released prep trial," Olson said. "The difference is they posted money to do so."