Tougher sex offender laws make it easier to conduct thorough background checks! While this article does not lend itself directly to employment background investigations, tougher laws are good for our industry.
Sex Offender Law Sent to Governor
BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK AND BETH HUNDSDORFER
News-Democrat
A proposed law to correct an earlier error in a statute, which was supposed to prohibit child sex offenders from living within 500 feet of an in-home day care, has passed both the House and the Senate and awaits Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s signature.
The governor has 60 days from receiving the bill to sign it.
House Bill 4402 resulted from an investigative story published Feb. 17 in the News-Democrat that reported that none of the state’s home-based day cares was actually covered by a 2006 law specifically designed to protect them.
The flaw was in the 2006 law’s definition of a “day care,” which was defined as any licensed for nine or more children. None of the state’s approximately 10,000 in-home day cares had more than eight children because of a regulation of the Department of Children and Family Services requiring that an assistant be hired if the home was licensed for nine or more kids.
