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Bipartisan Bill Would Tighten Control of Violent Felons After Release from Prison

Karen Kasler
/
Statehouse News Bureau

Ohio lawmakers are considering a bipartisan bill that they say would keep dangerous felons behind bars and increase monitoring when they're released. It comes after the kidnapping, rape and murder of an Ohio State student from northwest Ohio earlier this year.

The Reagan Tokes Act would make it possible to give some dangerous felons longer sentences. It would also require parolees be monitored more closely, have more clearly defined rules and would give police more tools for GPS monitoring. Reagan’s mother Lisa Tokes says these changes are needed.

“It is reprehensible in the wake of this flawed system that violence like this happens time and time again, resulting in the loss of innocent, law-abiding citizens’ lives that have so much positive to offer this world like Reagan did.

Accused murderer Brian Golsby was released three months before the 21-year-old student’s death after serving a six-year sentence for attempted rape. The GPS device he was wearing and DNA on a cigarette butt placed him where her body was found, but he has pleaded not guilty. 

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.