I am pleased to announce that the Illinois bill that forms a “Sex Offenses and Sex Offender Registration Task Force” to recommend reforms to Illinois laws and restrictions passed the Illinois Senate today and heads to the Illinois Governor for signature! The bill recognizes that the current laws do not assess or differentiate former offenders based on likelihood for re-offense or risk posed to public safety and challenges the task force to use evidence based practices to recommend changes to the Illinois General Assembly that would more effectively classify SOs based on their risk of re-offense.
You can read the text of the bill here:
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/99/HB/PDF/09900HB5572lv.pdf
Illinois Voices has been working this bill with Illinois legislators since last October! We are hopeful that the governor will sign the bill (there has been no indication that he will not sign the bill) and hopefully this task force will get organized later this year. There’s a possibility that Illinois Voices will have a seat on the task force — see sub-section (U) in the bill.