A group of registered sex offenders have filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago, saying residence restrictions keep them in prison even after they've been granted parole. They say the restrictions amount to life sentences.
The trouble begins with the courts’ interpretation of the sentencing law, which permits parole terms from three years to life at a court’s discretion.Rather than setting determinate parole periods within that timeframe, however, state courts routinely sentence sex offenders to indeterminate parole, the complaint states.When a sex offender serves that time outside prison, he earns credit towards termination of his parole.But when the offender is not able to leave prison because he cannot legally live in any of his proposed “host sites,” he can never earn termination of his parole, effectively sentencing him to life in prison, according to the lawsuit.Read the full story from the Courthouse News Service.