IL: Rankings considered for sex offenders

Nice to see that more and more states are finally coming to terms that what they’re doing isn’t doing anything other than sure as hell sucking up a ton of time and money.

Right right rankings…
Like college football
or the WBC rankings….
Who’s number one…Who’s number one.!!?!!
Idiots .
Question is Who is the number one Un-,Constitutional state…Who’s #1
Who’s #1…!!?!!
Idiots.

In 2016, the Illinois’ 99th General Assembly established the Sex Offenses and Sex Offender Registration Task Force to examine the implementation and impact of the state’s sex offender registration and residency restrictions. The completed report has just been released and portends revolutionary changes in the lives of us registered sex offenders in Illinois (and hopefully by it’s influence in other states). We almost all now suffer under lifetime registration and very stringent residence, presence, and travel restrictions, with no regard for our initial offense or how we have behaved since completing our sentences.

The report reviews sex offenses subject to registration in Illinois; discusses the statutory categories of sex offenders and sexual predator, and what state-level data shows about the sex offender population; offers a brief history of sex offender legislation and policy from a national and Illinois perspective; examines the state’s infrastructure tasked with overseeing state and local sex offender management system; and provides the Task Force’s findings and recommendations.

Here is a summary of the report’s 14 recommendations to the legislature. Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that the politicians will enact them into law (without backing down in major ways like in CA). A link to the complete report follows. Advocates and lawyers advancing our cause are encouraged to study it for ammunition to use in other states.

Task Force Recommendations

Support Infrastructure that Promotes Effective Sex Offender Management
1. Make Illinois’ Sex Offender Management Board (SOMB) an independent agency that is staffed and directed by an expert with a clinical background specializing in sex offender assessment and treatment. Illinois’ SOMB should use research to inform the creation of policy and to evaluate how policies are implemented and their impact.
2. Expand Illinois’ SOMB’s core activities to include: setting statewide treatment and management standards that are research informed and evidence-based; identifying and certifying agencies and professionals qualified to carry out those standards; conducing systematic and comprehensive quality assurance oversight to ensure those certified are indeed implementing the standards specified; and providing training to agencies and professionals charged with treatment and court supervision, including judges. Adequate funding and staffing resources should be allocated to carry out these core functions. Utilize Risk Assessments Post Conviction for Treatment and Management Purposes
3. Require the use of a validated, structured risk assessment, as it is the most effective way to identify risk to sexually reoffend, as well as general reoffending risk.
4. Use a standardized risk assessment process and risk assessment tools to promote consistency across those conducting the assessments. The tools, training, and process should be shaped by state oversight entity, like a sufficiently funded SOMB.
5. Administer risk assessments after conviction by qualified professionals. Re-administer once a year, ideally (but minimally, every two years), while under supervision.
6. Document and explain opinions that diverge from what is indicated by the validated, structured risk assessments.
7. Require treatment and management be informed by the current scientific evidence as it relates to what is effective at reducing sexual reoffending.

Use the Registry to Focus on High-Risk People Convicted of Sex Offenses
8. Effectively identify high-risk people by requiring any registry to use tiers to reflect actual risk of sexual re-offending (informed by the risk-assessment conducted post-conviction).
9. Ensure resources can be focused on people who are at high risk of re-offending by having individuals on lower tiers—i.e., those who pose less risk—automatically removed from the registry after a set duration.
10. Allow registrants to petition to be removed from the registry if they meet certain criteria, such as having crossed the desistance threshold. These criteria should be created by Illinois’ SOMB and be informed by current scientific knowledge.
11. If used, the term “Sexual Predator” should not automatically refer to all lifetime registrants.
12. Remove statutory requirements that stipulate any new felony (not for a sex offense) automatically triggers retroactive registration for certain individuals.

Ensure Restrictions are Narrowly Tailored to Improve Public Safety
13. Tailor restrictions, including residency and proximity, to different tiers, with the highest risk tiers having appropriate restrictions.
14. Revise the amount of time on Mandatory Supervised Release (MSR) for persons convicted of sex offenses. Those individuals determined to be lower risk, as determined by a validated, structured risk assessment, should have maximum MSR sentences of three years. Only the highest risk individuals, as determined by a validated, structured risk assessment, should have MSR sentences beyond three years.

PDF of full report
http://www.icjia.state.il.us/assets/articles/SOTF_report_final_12292017.pdf