Sex offenders on probation challenge Illinois policy on contact with children

CHICAGO (CN) ­­— Sex offenders on supervised release argued before a Seventh Circuit panel Thursday that Illinois' policy limiting when they can see their children is unconstitutional and should be overturned.

The parolees filed a class action against the Illinois Department of Corrections in 2018 over a policy that forbade sex offenders from contacting their children in any capacity for at least six months after their release from prison.

A federal judge found the policy violates the parolees' right to due process and granted them a preliminary injunction in June 2018.

The Department of Corrections then implemented a new policy, which the class said still operates as a presumptive ban on sex offenders seeing their children. The federal judge disagreed and upheld the new policy.

The new policy stipulates that people on supervised release can request to see their children, but they must first see a sex offender therapist within two weeks of their release from prison. The class appealed to the Seventh Circuit.

“Within 21 days of the initial appointment, the therapist and the parole agent ‘will determine whether there is reasonable cause to believe that the parolee’s child(ren) would be endangered by parent-child contact with the parolee,’” the parolees say in their appellate brief.

On Thursday, the parolees' attorney Adele Nicholas told a three-judge panel that the new policy still prevents parents from seeing their children for months or years at a time. She said this is partially because the Department of Corrections does not have any way to guarantee therapists can see people on supervised release in 14 days, as it can’t control therapists’ schedules.

“Even for the four therapists employed directly by IDOC, demand for therapy outstrips the therapists’ capacity to see patients, and as a result it 'typically' takes around two months to even have an initial intake appointment,” the class says in its brief.

And while waiting for a decision from their therapist, the parolees still can’t contact their children via phone calls or letters — despite having been able to see them and talk to them while they were in prison.

“To cut people off for such lengths of time is such a drastic step,” U.S. Circuit Judge Diane Wood, a Bill Clinton appointee, said during Thursday's proceedings. She asked assistant Attorney General Kaitlyn Chenevert: “Why does a telephone become dangerous the day you walk out of prison?”

Chenevert said former inmates could behave differently when they are not being watched as they are in prison.

Woods asked why the department hasn’t considered monitoring telephone calls from people under supervised release, like they do when they’re incarcerated. Chenevert answered that monitoring those phone calls would create too many administrative burdens for the department.

She also noted the plaintiffs never suggested a reasonable alternative to the policy, to which Wood responded, “They didn’t ever reach a point where they could do that.”

The class also say the department's deference to the therapists is unconstitutional. One class members who maintained consistent contact with his teenage son while he was incarcerated was strictly prohibited from seeing his son after he was released, despite being in therapy for over a year, with no explanation as to why.

Nicholas said that therapists can’t operate as neutral parties in these decisions — and a neutral party at every level of this process is important.

“I think therapists would disagree with you,” U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Kirsch, a Donald Trump appointee, said.

But in the brief, Nicholas noted therapists have no consistent timelines and requirements as to when sex offenders are considered ready to see their kids. One therapist might say an offender needs six months of treatment before they can be reunited with their children, and another might require a year of treatment before a reunion is possible.               

Nicholas also said that once an offender is told they can’t see their children, there’s little they can do to appeal that decision. One man couldn’t appeal his denial to see his children because it was never formally documented.

U.S. Circuit Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, appointed by President Joe Biden, asked Chenevert if the appeal process is reasonably available to parolees. Chenevert said it is, but she could not provide details outside of an appeal form that parolees can ask their parole officers for.

The panel did not say when it would rule. 

Follow @RosenCaitlyn

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