IL - Illinois’ sex-offender fee generates little money

Original Article

Charging someone a fee for a service they do not want, or face prison time, is basically extortion!

06/22/2012

By DAVID MERCER

CHAMPAIGN — When the Illinois Sheriffs Association pushed two years ago to raise by tenfold the annual fee law enforcement agencies charge registered sex offenders, Executive Director Greg Sullivan hoped he was about to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for a new statewide tracking system.

That hasn’t happened.

The General Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn in 2010 changed state law to allow towns and counties to charge a $100 annual fee, but only a relative handful of local agencies have taken advantage.

Most agencies, Sullivan said Friday, have had enough trouble collecting the old $20 annual fee, much less 10 times that amount.

“If they’re not collecting the fee now, why raise it?’’ he asked.

The tracking system, Offender Watch, now lacks the $450,000 a year Sullivan had hoped to raise to pay for it. The system now lacks most of the money that was intended to run it — last year, the annual fees raised only $13,000 — and Sullivan fears he may have to shut the new system down.
- Good, we do not need an online shaming hit-list in the first place, but, this shows that police and others will use FEAR to attempt to motivate people to send in their cash!

Illinois has almost 15,300 registered sex offenders, according to Tracey Newton of the Illinois State Police. About 4,400 of them are in Cook County.

The higher fee, under the new law, is divided between the local agency and the state, including $30 of every $100 collected for the new tracking system. The system, according to Sullivan and the AG’s office, is far more sophisticated than other state law enforcement data systems.

But even the old standard Illinois fee of $10 — low compared with many states — has been seldom collected. Local agencies opt instead to allow offenders to register — and get them into the system — rather than turning away those who claimed they couldn’t pay, according to Cara Smith, deputy chief of staff for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

“We just found a lot of agencies that weren’t collecting across the board,’’ she said. “And they want to know where these guys are.’’

Streator in central Illinois became the latest town to enact the higher annual fee when the City Council agreed this week.

“If it’s there, we might as well take advantage of it because we have the administrative expense of (keeping the registry) anyhow,’’ Streator Mayor Jimmie Lansford said.

But he acknowledged many of the 50 registered sex offenders in the town of 14,000 may not be able to pay, or may just decide not to. And the law, he acknowledged, has no real punitive teeth for those who don’t pay.

“We may get some money, we may not get any,’’ Lansford said.

If Mt. Vernon in southern Illinois is any indicator, the result will likely be some, but not much.

The small town raised its annual fee at the beginning of the year and has so far collected $1,300 from its 56 registered sex offenders, police Chief Chris Mendenall said. Under the law, just under $400 of that belongs to the city, a tiny sliver of the police department’s annual $5 million budget.

“Compliance isn’t real high,’’ Mendenall said.

While a lot registered sex offenders across the state never paid the $10 fee when it was the maximum, a $100 fee would be genuinely out of reach for many, according to Amy Campanelli. She oversees the Cook County Public Defender’s Office suburban operations and sits on the state’s Sex Offender Management Board. Convicted sex offenders’ job prospects are usually dim, she said.

“For our clients, who are indigent, that’s a lot of money,’’ she said.

Sullivan is skeptical of many sex offenders’ claims of indigence.
- Maybe they don't want to pay your extortion fee?

But the sheriffs association is now backing a new bill, sponsored by state Rep. Norine Hammond, R-Macomb, that would allow local agencies to set up payment plans for those who need them. For offenders who sign an affidavit saying they can’t afford to pay, payment through community service would be an option.

IL - You can have sex with a 17 year old legally, but photograph them naked and it's child porn?

Original Article

06/21/2012

SPRINGFIELD (CBS) – In a case that highlights one of the unusual incongruities of state laws, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a downstate man didn’t commit a crime when he had sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend, but he did break the law when he took pictures of them in the act.

[name withheld] was arrested in downstate Freeport in March 2009, and charged with three counts of child pornography after photographing himself having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend, but he was not charged with statutory rape, since the age of consent for sex in Illinois is 17. But, in Illinois, it is illegal to photograph anyone under the age of 18 engaged in a sexual act.

After a bench trial later that year, [name withheld] — who was 32 at the time — was convicted and sentenced to 8 years in prison, but he appealed his conviction.

In a 5-2 ruling on Thursday, the high court upheld his conviction and sentence.

Police began investigating [name withheld] after the girl’s mother complained about [name withheld] having sex with the girl. [name withheld] was 32 at the time and already a registered sex offender. She also showed police four or five pictures that [name withheld] had emailed to her daughter, showing them having sex.

[name withheld] admitted taking the pictures of himself having sex with the girl, using his cell phone, and acknowledged he knew the girl was 17 when they had sex.

[name withheld]’ attorneys argued the state’s child pornography statute is unconstitutional, claiming that applying the law to someone old enough to legally consent to sex does nothing to protect them from exploitation or abuse.

But prosecutors argued the child pornography statute was designed to protect children from the psychological and emotional harm that could result from distributing photos of their sexual activity.

Writing for the majority, Justice Rita Garman said the majority of the high court agreed with prosecutors, holding “there are rational, reasonable arguments in support of having a higher age threshold for appearance in pornography than for consent to sexual activity.”

They further argued that the consequences for sex are more concrete and apparent to teenagers than the dangers of appearing in pornographic photos or videos.

“Memorialization of the sexual act makes permanent an intimate encounter that can then be distributed to third parties. These concerns are exacerbated in the modern digital age, where once a picture or video is uploaded to the Internet, it can never be completely erased or eradicated,” the court wrote. “It will always be out there, hanging over the head of the person depicted performing the sexual act.”

[name withheld] had argued the photos were meant to be kept private, but the court noted that there is no guarantee the photos would always remain private.

Two justices – Anne Burke and Charles Freeman – dissented, arguing that, since the sex itself was consensual and legal, the photographs [name withheld] took were also legal.

IL - Can you guys help me find this Federal Law?

The following was sent to us via the "CONTACT" form and posted with the users permission.

By Anonymous:
I am a RSO in Illinois and I received a letter in the mail from the Illinois State Police that says I am required to fill out a form and mail it to them.

It also says "This confirmation is required by federal law."

I have just moved here last year and it is a month until my in person registration and I have never been required to mail in a form in other places I have lived.

I also can not find this law they are referencing.

Are they just hassling me or did my previous state cause me to break federal law?