Work Group on Conviction Registries

Alliance of advocates and public stakeholders seeking to reduce and/or abolish the use of public conviction registries, housing banishment laws, and public exclusion zones

2016–present

Work Group Information

Many people working in social services—such as halfway houses, homeless shelters, mental health treatment, disability services, legal and reentry services, supportive housing—are aware of the damaging impact of registry and banishment policies. It is common for nonprofits to turn people away because their agencies can’t or won’t help them. Over the years, I have coordinated with caring people on "the front lines" to build a kind of resistance network to harmful policy initiatives. For example, I worked to stop bad legislation by conducting bill analyses and providing talking points to legislators who were willing to block bills in committee.

We all came together for the The Registry 20 Years Later conference in 2016. And we strategized and debriefed about a recent State Task Force on the issue (several of the people in our group were members). I have now leveraged the efforts of this ad-hoc group to support and advise the Chicago 400. This involves:
—Conducting trainings and workshops with the Chicago 400 members
—Attending Chicago 400 conferences
—Working individually with Chicago 400 members on telling their stories
—Meeting to discuss specific campaign issues and strategy
—Participating in the McDonald’s Legal Talk Desk or providing resources for case research

Legislators rightly fear that if they vote to reform these laws, they will be attacked in their next election campaign via direct mail ads. Therefore, we need to establish a strong and broad base of support so they are somewhat "protected" in even supporting a minor change. I am working to build these partnerships. We recently wrote a memo to Mayor Lightfoot from victim advocates, homeless advocates, and criminal justice advocates on behalf of the Chicago 400, asking her to audit the use of the sex offense registry by Chicago police and to reconsider our dependence on these failed policies.

Sample work group documents
Memo to Mayor Lightfoot
Catalogue of issues facing the Chicago 400
Simplified strategic plan for the Chicago 400 + Work Group.

Laurie Jo Reynolds is the coordinator of the Work Group and the organizer of the Chicago 400.

NaviGator App with Reggie the Registry Navigator

I am the subject matter expert, along with Margot Moinester, for students in the Georgetown Iron Tech Lawyer App Program, Practicum on Technology, Innovation and Access to the Civil Justice System, at the Institute for Technology Law & Policy at Georgetown Law. We advised four Georgetown Law students on the design and development of an app to provide legal support for people on any public conviction registry in Illinois, and link them to the resources from the Work Group.

The students synthesized hundreds of pages of statutes, considered 28,763 unique user reports, and produced two real-time mapping functions using open-access software. Their app won the Social Media Award at the 2019 Iron Tech Lawyer Competition. We are still continuing the project via their pro-bono summer credit hours because we want to get the map function ready for users in Illinois. The application will allow users to:

—Enter information about past convictions to learn if they have a duty to register and when and where they have a duty to report. (There are 6 different registries and people may have to report different information in places where they live, work and attend school.)
—Look up addresses to see if they are within public exclusion zones (places they can’t be) or housing banishment zones (places they can’t live).
—Geolocate users to see if they are entering or approaching a public exclusion zone or housing banishment zone.
—Provide a searchable Illinois database about these statutes for legal professionals and service providers.
—Compile crowd-sourced information about administrative policies, such as the way registration is handled at the Chicago police station.