In a single afternoon last month, a powerful legislative panel took up, among other things, the death penalty, witness intimidation, eavesdropping and state gun laws. But for every measure under consideration there was another aimed at a single subject: sex offenders.
"It seems like every other bill deals with sex offenders. If they had any money, they should hire a lobbyist," remarked Chicago Democratic Sen. John Cullerton as a long day spilled into evening.
Minutes later, the committee approved yet another bill, this time prohibiting more than one paroled sex offender from living at the same address, with the exception of state-supervised transition centers. The senators paused to ensure they weren't voting to set up more such facilities and some wondered why they exist in the first place.
"Send 'em on a boat somewhere," suggested Sen. Bill Haine, an Alton Democrat and former state's attorney. "Man, I don't want that in my backyard."
Neighborhoods generally don't welcome ex-cons with open arms, but parolees who have committed crimes of a sexual nature are an especially unwelcome bunch. Sex crimes are seen as particularly heinous, and evidence suggests such offenders may strike more than once. Paroled sex offenders were four times more likely to be rearrested for a sex crime than other released convicts in a recent U.S. Justice Department study covering Illinois and 14 other states.
But government simply cannot warehouse every individual who commits at least one of a growing number of sex crimes. Instead, Illinois officials, led by Attorney General Lisa Madigan, want to improve the way the state monitors these parolees. Under the plan, they will have to sacrifice more of their personal privacy to enhance the security of other Illinoisans.
There are more than 18,000 sex offenders in Illinois. Parolees can't live near parks or schools. And every year they have to update their addresses with the state. They have to tell local officials before they move, and some must name their employers. Still, two-thirds of all sex offenders go unsupervised by the state. They're either off probation or have completed their parole, which lasts no more than three years.
Madigan wants to change that. She's calling for flexible parole terms, which for some could mean lifetime supervision. High-risk offenders also would be outfitted with electronic bracelets linked to a global positioning system that uses satellites to track their movements. If a parolee loiters near a local park or passes by a victim's home, the state will have definitive evidence.
"It's going to end up being good for offenders because the goal is to keep them out of prison and to provide them with services and treatment that they need," says Cara Smith, Madigan's point person on sex-offender legislation.
The attorney general's most recent effort garnered overwhelming support in the General Assembly this spring, and Gov. Rod Blagojevich has voiced his approval, meaning it likely is only a matter of time before Illinois becomes the 14th state to supervise some sex offenders for life. Florida joined the list last month after a convicted sex offender was charged with kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering a 9-year-old neighbor girl. In addition to lifetime supervision and electronic monitoring, the legislation signed by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush mandates a sentence of 25 years to life for those convicted of molesting a child younger than 12.
In Illinois, criminals considered sexually dangerous because of a mental condition or a propensity for repeat offenses can be incarcerated indefinitely. The handful who have been treated and released must register with the state for life while most offenders are required to remain on the state registry (www.isp.state.il.us/sor/frames.htm) for a decade after release. Many paroled sex offenders already are monitored electronically in their homes. GPS devices would track what they do when they leave home for work and other approved activities.
Earlier this year, Blagojevich put out bids for 200 of the tracking devices, which will allow the Illinois Department of Corrections to establish a pilot monitoring program. The move came after a Chicago Tribune report showed that 10 percent of the state's paroled sex offenders were concentrated within a single Chicago ZIP code. That report helped advance the legislation prohibiting multiple sex offenders from living at the same residence. The measure also would develop licensing standards for transitional housing, which led legislators to question whether they were paving the way for additional facilities.
The problem, as Sen. Haine rather brashly asserted, is that people don't want to live next to a sex offender.
"It's portrayed as a black and white issue once you start looking at the political aspects of this. It's presented as a sex offender is a sex offender," says Dr. Lauro Amezcua-Patino, a Phoenix-area psychiatrist who has helped Arizona lawmakers review their sex offender treatment programs. "It's very difficult for the public not to support more punishment for sex offenders. From the political perspective, it's an issue that is very palatable for politicians to endorse."
Amezcua-Patino runs a residential facility for young adult sex offenders. He says supervision and treatment works well for some offenders, but others simply aren't willing or able to accept treatment and instead must be incarcerated.
"You have to have good psychiatric evaluations," says Dr. Pogos Voskanian, a Philadelphia-based forensic psychiatrist who often testifies as an expert witness in criminal cases. "Our sexuality is a deeply ingrained matter. You cannot really change your orientation, or it's an extremely hard thing to do."
But with proper assessment, officials can determine which individuals can handle parole, Voskanian says. "I think that it's a worthwhile effort to monitor without keeping those people in prisons and jail for their whole life."
Such policies, however, require resources. Blagojevich has proposed spending an additional $2.7 million next year to add 31 parole agents to a specially trained sex offender monitoring unit established last year. At the same time, the Department of Human Services program that provides psychiatric treatment for sexually dangerous individuals is not in line for an increase in the agency's $18.9 million appropriation. Sex offenders can be charged to recoup some of their assessment, treatment and monitoring costs under a Madigan initiative the governor signed last summer.
Assessments will play a crucial role in a more flexible parole plan that includes the option of lifetime supervision, says Smith, Madigan's policy director.
"Really, what you need is someone that's going to say, 'This sex offender needs more intensive monitoring than this offender.' Our current laws don't really allow that kind of individualization," she says. "Whether you're a treatment provider or a lawyer or a judge or just a person on the street, you realize that someone who rapes a young child presents an entirely different scenario than the 19-year-old who has a 15-year-old girlfriend. Those are behaviors that are dramatically different and yet our laws don't acknowledge that in any real way."
In the the past two decades, the state has set aside more than 30 crimes for which the convicted must register as sex offenders. In addition to rape and child molestation, the list covers juvenile pimping and solicitation, possession of child pornography, kidnapping and child murder.
Recent legislative efforts, including those this spring, deal mostly with parolees. The measures garner wide support, including Madigan's proposal for lifetime supervision, which didn't receive a single "no" vote in either the House or the Senate. And, as Sen. Cullerton can attest, sex offenders don't deploy an active lobby in Springfield.
Illinois Issues, June, 2005
