Sex offenders who have completed their sentences but are still being held in Illinois prisons should be released as part of the effort to reduce the state’s prison population during the COVID-19 crisis, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.
The request for a temporary restraining order was filed on behalf of Marcus Barnes, a sex offender held at Graham Correctional Center, and about 300 other sex offenders who remain in prison because they have not located state-approved housing required for their release.
In their motion in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, lawyers Adele Nicholas and Mark Weinberg argue that the global pandemic poses “an acute risk to the health and safety of imprisoned persons.”
Parole for RSO is almost impossible. RSOs must be over 500 feet from schools and daycare centers. Sounds easy right? “Once a daycare center, always a daycare center!” Any home that has ever been used as a home daycare center is forever a restriction, even if the last children cared for in the daycare center have graduated from college! 494 feet away from a home daycare closed 10 years ago? Nope! Parole agents won’t approve a site if there was drug activity at that address, even if the drug addict who lived in the house died. The 500 feet restriction keeps children safe who successfully cross all 6 lanes of the interstate after scaling both 20 foot wooden sound-barrier fences on either side from encountering RSOs who might be mowing their lawns.
The folks in this case should use the Broward County death case as an example since the man in Broward County jail died of complications from COVID 19.