GH-S: Illinois Bill Will Literally Let Sex Offenders Move Into Your Home With You… Not really, though.
Over at the fantastic Posse Comitatus — a substack on sheriffs — Jess Pishko, wrote about ways in which sheriffs (and other law enforcement) often frame themselves as being on the side of victims even as those narratives are (a) often incoherent and (b) demonstrably false beyond their rhetoric.
So it was timely that I saw an article with the not-at-all-alarmist headline Illinois bill would allow sex offenders to live closer to schools, concerning a proposal to tweak Illinois law that the evidence conclusively supports would enhance — as opposed to diminish — public safety: among other things, reduce residency restrictions to alleviate chronic homelessness amongst people on public conviction registries.
Given that headline, it’s not terribly surprising that the article itself also included some equally bizarre quotes from — in this instance — a pair of sheriffs.
“The closer you bring a sex offender to these vulnerable targets, the more likely they are going to offend,” Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell said.
Campbell said this is a pro-sex offender, anti-victim, anti-police bill.
“Overall, the bill would make our communities less safe,” Campbell said.
Housing restrictions for people with past sex offense convictions do not exist at all in roughly half of the states, and they’re getting along just fine without them. The evidence is so conclusive, in fact, that these are failed policies that Kansas’ DOC has a fact sheet up about why they’re bad (though Kansas has a ton of other issues in this area), and the even US Department of Justice recommends against their implementation:
Finally, the evidence is fairly clear that residence restrictions are not effective. In fact, the research suggests that residence restrictions may actually increase offender risk by undermining offender stability and the ability of the offender to obtain housing, work, and family support. There is nothing to suggest this policy should be used at this time.
Yet a bill proposing to reduce this policy in Illinois is pro-sex offender, anti-victim and — curiously — anti-police. I say it’s curious because the bill also reduces the amount of work police have to do! According to the Chicago 400, Chicago police detectives re-register homeless individuals on the registry, “collecting and uploading the same forms each week,” to the tune of 23,000 times every year. Perhaps a better use of Chicago police resources would be investigating rapes, but I guess Sheriff Campbell feels that would be anti-victim:
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The less work police have to do in this specific area would also necessitate an admission of extra funding AND MANPOWER they no longer need. This is a money issue and a public relations move on the part of the police, who are now under the microscope themselves for several well-publicized incidents of brutality. This is nothing more than trying to throw the monkey on to our backs since we are the proverbial perennial whipping boys for society. Also, they’re not going to be admitting the truth which could cost some officers their jobs as well since all that extra manpower would no longer be needed.