IL: People with sex and gun convictions are required to register with police. CPD can’t keep up.
Thousands of people in Chicago are on a criminal conviction registry, including registries for gun crimes, sex offenses and murder and violence against youth. People on the registry have to show up yearly, quarterly or weekly or risk getting locked-up. But WBEZ has found men are repeatedly being turned away because of staffing shortages in the Chicago Police Department’s registry office.
Data from public records show CPD routinely registered more than 1,000 people per month in 2018. By the end of 2022, that number had been cut nearly in half.
The team that registers people is “a unit that for some reason the Chicago Police Department, especially the bureau detectives, who oversee this unit, do not care if it succeeds. And right now it is failing,” said Patty Casey, a former Chicago Police Commander who oversaw the registries until she retired in June 2021.
Casey called the situation inhumane — and said people who are trying to comply with the law should be able to do that.
Madeleine Behr, the policy manager at the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation which provides free legal services for victims of sexualized violence, said CAASE clients sometimes call detectives assigned to their cases and detectives tell them they can’t meet because they are busy doing compliance checks. She said those detectives are busy re-arresting people for technical violations, such as failing to update an address, instead of interviewing victims who need immediate help.
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How many, Lost Count
Here in Orange County Florida when you checked into the Sherriff’s office for years they would drill you, spend 15minutes going through everything in your life. Today they simply ask “Any Changes? If none, sign form, print and go, takes 5minutes. WHY? Overcrowded Registrants and a paperwork Nightmare.
JEV
TRUE CONFESSIONS
What some of you don’t realize is that Illinois registry laws are some of the dumbest in the nation. If you stay ANYWHERE in the state overnight over three times in a one year period, you are required to register. So if you stay overnight in Chicago 1/1, East St Louis in the summer, and Effingham on 12/31, you are now expected to register.
“bureau detectives, who oversee this unit, do not care if it succeeds….” said Patty Casey, a former Chicago Police Commander who oversaw the registries…. called the situation “inhumane”.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Politicians and LEOs should be careful what they ask for – they might just get — and then be unable to handle it!! 🤣🤣🤣
And, yes, sex offender registries are a public safety lie and are, indeed, inhumane. They are relentless, ongoing punishment that, at all times, threaten registrants with re-incarceration! 😡😠😡
Things such as a visitor that is going to be in town for a week, Changing, purchasing, or selling a vehicle, changing a telephone number. Things like this should be able to be done on-line rather than going to the office to report it.
Ive always thought that this was the way to abolish the registry, by flooding the system with registries for every crime and violation.
The system would see how much of a waste it is in time and money. And those from all areas of convictions would actually rally under one purpose.
People wont understand the ridiculousness of the registry until they are held to the same requirements.
I totally disagree with the registry of course, but until it hopefully is annulled, I think it should be made as easy as possible to register, like through email or face time, etc. There should be many easy options for registrants so that law enforcement can focus on real criminal issues in real time, and not re-arresting people for stipulations and ordinances in the law that some registrants are currently unable to comply with.