WOODFORD COUNTY, Ill. – Concerns are being raised by the Woodford County State’s Attorney about the state’s SAFE-T Act, but is not confident in changes to it.
Erik Gibson’s concerns come in the wake of a ruling on Wednesday by a judge that released 32-year-old Matthew Cornes of Lawrenceville. He was arrested in the county this week after allegedly attempting to travel to Germantown Hills to meet up with who he believed to be a 14-year-old girl for sex.
Gibson says sexual crimes would be considered for detainment under the act. But he tells WMBD’s “The Phil Luciano Show” that there’s hurdles to proving that a person arrested for such crimes would be a danger to the community.
“The court’s going to look at these cases and say ‘Well, who specifically is this person a danger to, and can I do anything potentially?’” Gibson said. “And the conditions that often get put on are reactionary instead of proactive.”
Gibson says those conditions include not having contact with minors and to not go online, but notes that it can be difficult to have 24/7 monitoring of those conditions because of a lack of resources. He says there is also a lot of faith being put on other counties to monitor an individual.
Gibson says he would like to return to a bond system, where conditions can be placed upon the bond, such as GPS monitoring.
As far as making changes to the system, Gibson does not feel confident in it occurring anytime soon, even though he says there’s overwhelming support across the state to do so.
“Unfortunately, I think with the current makeup of our legislature, I don’t see that being something that’s going to change anytime soon,” Gibson said.
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