Will Assisted Living Facilities Accept Registered Sex Offenders

Our FOCUS team has constitute many elderly residents are living among registered sexual practice offenders. If they don't exercise their homework, they probable wouldn't know it.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — When families are looking for just the right place for their loved ones to live with 24/7 care, they frequently don't think about who else might exist living there as well.

Nursing homes, assisted living services, and other long-term care facilities in Kentucky and Indiana are not required to disclose to incoming or current residents and their families the backgrounds of other residents who are likely sharing mutual areas with them.

That includes registered sex offenders.

FOCUS constitute that in Kentucky, at least seven sex activity offenders are registered as residents in at to the lowest degree six long-term care facilities throughout the country.

That's a very small percentage of total residents, merely family members like Jill Westmoreland want to know.

Her mother, Kathryn Westmoreland, but turned 100-years-one-time on Feb. 10.

"If someone is a sex offender, and then that should be something that is disclosed," Jill Westmoreland said.

Kathryn used to live at Regis Wood, endemic by Genesis HealthCare, until it was forced to close down in Oct after the federal government cutoff Medicare/Medicaid to the nursing domicile after connected care failures.

However, after a quick search on the Kentucky Sexual activity Offender Registry, we found that a homo convicted for 1st caste rape and required to stay registered for life, lived at Regis Woods.

After shutting downwardly, that man remained registered to Regis Woods' accost for more than two months. He was re-registered January 31 to Regency Heart'due south address, which is some other Genesis operated nursing home.

Genesis spokesperson, Lori Mayer, issued a argument saying that its nursing homes don't have to practice its ain homework on possible admittance of a sex offender considering the Commonwealth of Kentucky does not crave it.

This is the full statement:

The State of Kentucky does not require nursing homes to check the State or National Sex Offender Registry for new admissions. Acceptance or denial of a patient is based on the Center's ability to provide advisable care to come across the potential patient's needs. Centers are prohibited from denying admission to a potential patient who would otherwise exist advisable for admission solely because he/she is listed on a Country or National Sex Offender Registry. Our affiliated Centers in Kentucky also protect the privacy of all patients and will not reveal sexual practice offender status unless required by police force or regulation.

Sex offenders at Kentucky long term care facilities
DISCLAIMER: Later on serving their judgement, offenders are required to report their address to the Kentucky Department of Corrections or the Division of Probation & Parole upon existence assigned probation or moving in from some other country. The information is nerveless and forwarded to the Kentucky State Police for inclusion in the database and placement on the website. The FOCUS team used the addresses of licensed long-term intendance facilities to search the registry. Beneath is a list of facilities with addresses that matched addresses reported by offenders equally of Feb 2022. It is of import to note the offenders' addresses can change. For the virtually upward-to-date information, you should search the registry. We've included those links in this article.

In the case of Kathryn Westmoreland, she was temporarily moved across the river to some other nursing dwelling in Jeffersonville, Indiana.

She had to eventually leave Hillcrest Village because information technology could not adjust her needs according to family.

However, there also was a registered sex offender, co-ordinate to the Indiana Sexual practice and Vehement Offender Registry.

The home issued this statement:

In accordance with HIPPA regulations, we are unable to disclose information about our residents.  Hillcrest Hamlet's priority is e'er the health and well-being of our residents and employees.

FOCUS also searched that registry and found vastly more sexual practice offenders registered to Indiana long-term care facilities.

At to the lowest degree 87 sex offenders alive in at least 35 nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

At ane facility in Bedford, Indiana, we found 11 sex offenders, plus one violent offender.

Meanwhile, nosotros also discovered that the work addresses for at least 3 offenders are registered to three different facilities.

That is inconsistent with what The Indiana Health Care Association (IHCA) told FOCUS.

The IHCA says all employees at long-term care facilities have to go through background checks and cannot work there if crimes of abuse, including sexual abuse, bear witness upwards.

This statement is attributed to IHCA President Zach Cattell:

Each employee hired by a long-term care facilities are required to accept a criminal background bank check. They too accept to comply with numerous federal and state laws and other regulations that prohibit the employment of whatsoever individual plant guilty of abuse, including sexual abuse. Penalties for violating these laws are significant with many centers also choosing to implement more than stringent hiring policies than what is mandated by law.  The facilities carefully evaluate every access, specially those with a criminal background, as facilities have a legal obligation to protect the health and well-being of all residents that are function of their facility. It is of import to note that the facilities are an integral part of the communities they serve, and every bit such, Hoosiers with a criminal background may besides need long-term intendance services merely similar whatever other citizen.

"That shocks me," Attorney Brian Jasper said upon hearing that a few sex offenders had registered work addresses matching long-term intendance facilities in Indiana.

Jasper does not practice law in Indiana, but he says the standard for employment at the homes is universal.

Sex and violent offenders with addresses matching Indiana intendance long term intendance facilities

DISCLAIMER: After serving their sentence, offenders are required to report their, dwelling, work, temporary and secondary addresses to the Sheriff's part in the corresponding county in Indiana. That data is uploaded to the registry online. The FOCUS team used the addresses of licensed long-term care facilities to search the registry. Beneath is a list of facilities with addresses that matched addresses reported by offenders as of February 2022. Information technology is important to note the offenders' addresses tin can change. For the most up-to-date information, y'all should search the registry. We've included those links in this article.

"That's my understanding that if you lot accept a conviction for a violent crime or sexual activity law-breaking, that you're prohibited from working in long-term intendance facilities," Jasper said.

Jasper specializes in nursing habitation abuse at the Thomas Law Offices considering before becoming an attorney, he was a certified nursing banana in nursing homes.

"Y'all take a correct to know who you lot're living with," Jasper argued, adding that families should be told too.  "They have the right to know who'due south in that location, who they're mingling with their loved ones."

Without knowing, Jasper says, "Non simply are the residents vulnerable, there are small children that come to visit and there are teenagers and young people that visit in that location too."

According to a study past the Goldberg Segalla law firm, at 1 point, seven states require that both the facility and residents must be notified well-nigh another resident who is a registered sex offender.

Those states were Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, and Virginia.

To this date, Kentucky and Indiana do not require nursing homes and other long-term care facilities to disclose that a registered sex offender lives in that location.

However, since our report, Kentucky Senator David Yates, D-Louisville, and Country Senator Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, are considering draft legislation on full disclosure.

You tin can hear what they program to change Tuesday at 6pm on WHAS11 News. To meet what offenders may be living in your area or in your loved ones' nursing habitation, you tin search the Kentucky  and Indiana  registry. You tin can register your home, child's schoolhouse or whatsoever other address in Indiana to get free email alerts if an offender moves to your area, merely click 'annals for email alerts'.

► Contact reporter John Charlton at jcharlton@whas11.com . Follow him on Twitter (@JCharltonNews)  and Facebook .

► Make it easy to keep up-to-appointment with more stories like this. Download the WHAS11 News app now. For Apple tree  or Android  users.

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Will Assisted Living Facilities Accept Registered Sex Offenders,

Source: https://www.whas11.com/article/news/investigations/focus/sex-offenders-long-term-care-facilities-kentucky-indiana-investigation-focus/417-98e083b0-fdb7-4608-ba8b-4a583290c2d7

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