Illinois Supreme Court strikes down social media ban for sex offender

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled this week that it is unconstitutional to ban people on the sex offense registry from social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.  The argument was that the ban was a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment – fundamental right to free speech.  (The State Journal-Register)

Fortunately, the Illinois Supreme Court realized that the goal of probation is rehabilitation, and the social media ban was not “reasonably related” to that goal.

According to Georgetown.edu, “participating justices were  not persuaded that (the law) provides rehabilitative value…that outweighs, in many circumstances, its detriment to rehabilitation.”  Counseling and treatment were recommended as better rehabilitative options.

Allison Frankel, a guest columnist for the Gainesville Sun (2020), stated in her opinion piece “Probation, parole system impacts Black people more” that people on probation must abide by “numerous vague, difficult to follow, and oppressive conditions.”  And this is for regular probation.  Sex offense probation is worse.

“Probation and parole were designed in the late 19^th century to keep people out of jail and prison and help them to get needed services.”  The tough-on-crime movement has resulted in major changes in probation.  “Conditions toughened, sentences lengthened, monitoring increased, and sanctions for violations were heightened.  Now these systems are fueling mass incarceration.”

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center found that “45% of state prison admissions nationwide are due to violations of probation or parole for new offenses of technical violations.”  In 20 states, half of state prison admissions are due to supervision violations; in 13 states, more than 1/3 of the of state prison admissions are due to supervision violations.

In my own experience with sex offense probation, I found that if you succeeded in reintegrating back into society successfully, it was in spite of probation.

With that said, I do hear of caring, professional probation officers who have made a positive impact on the lives of the people they supervised.  We want to give them a special and warm thank you.

“To be sure, probation and parole do keep some people out of jail and prison”, said Frankel, “but in far too many cases, they lead people right back to a cell, while in large part failing to connect them with the services and resources they need.”

In 2020, the Gainesville Sun published an editorial expressing their concern over what has happened to probation in Florida since its conception.  Among their concerns was the fact that over the years, too much power has been given to probation offices and the inconsistencies between the different probation offices throughout Florida, i.e., one office permits people on the sex offense registry to go to movie theaters to view certain types of movies while another office does not allow any visits to movie theaters, or one office allows its people on sex offense probation to enter shopping malls while another office does not.

Fortunately, the Illinois Supreme Court had the insight to see how onerous and unconstitutional the social media ban was for people on sex offense probation.  We hope that some day Florida, along with other states, will understand how barbaric it is to ban people on sex offense probation from using the internet, unless they jump through some difficult hoops to obtain the privilege.  It is similar to banning people in the 70s from using a telephone or using public transportation.

The Illinois Supreme Court got it right:  If a goal of sex offense probation does not increase the likelihood of a successful rehabilitation for the probationer, then it needs to be stopped.  Would the Florida Supreme Court agree?