The Law Checks on Your Local Sex Offenders

An interagency effort to check compliance of registered sex offenders and registered violent offenders against youth was carried out Sept. 25.

Investigators from nine police agencies worked together to check a combined 82 offenders. During the checks, investigators made contact with 39 offenders and completed a verification check on each. Investigators identified three offenders that were possibly in violation of the Sex Offender Registration Act and criminal investigations were opened into these allegations. Investigators visited 43 additional residences, but were unable to complete the verification process due to not making contact with the offender. In total, investigators checked 82 residences in three hours.

Kendall County Sheriff Dwight Baird said The Kendall County Sheriff’s Office is fulfilling its public safety responsibility by conducting sex offender compliance checks frequently.

“By partnering with local and federal law enforcement agencies we maximize our resource effectiveness, improve communication and intelligence sharing to help ensure our communities are safe. We want to constantly remind registered sex offenders that law enforcement is watching and monitoring their activity to deter them from criminal behavior,” Baird said

Montgomery Police Chief Daniel Meyers said that as the laws of the Sex Offender Registrations have changed, it has made their jurisdictions increasingly intertwined, and agencies have been working closer together operationally.

The Sex Offender Registration Act places legal mandates on persons convicted of sex crimes. The act requires the sex offender to register his residence, employer, school, vehicles and many other items with the police agency where they reside. The act also has stiff penalties for violations of the act. Persons required to register as Violent Offender Against Youths are persons who have been convicted of an offense listed in Illinois Compiled Statutes 730 ILCS 154/5 when such charge results in the finding the offense was not sexually motivated. Most of these crimes are crimes against persons who are under the age of 18.

The sheriff’s office will continue to work in cooperation and conjunction with all police agencies in and around Kendall County. The focus of this teamwork is to proactively work toward reducing crime and maintaining the high quality of life that Kendall County and the surrounding areas offer.

The police agencies involved were the Oswego Police Department, Yorkville Police Department, Montgomery Police Department, Aurora Police Department, Plano Police Department, Joliet Police Department, Plainfield Police Department, Kendall County Sheriff’s Office, United States Marshals in Northern Illinois, and the United States Marshals Great Lakes Task Force.