A bill that would deal with the way violent criminals are monitored once they are released from prison has been reintroduced in the Ohio Legislature. It’s named for Reagan Tokes, a 21-year-old Ohio State University student who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a recently released felon in 2017.
Republican Representative Rick Carfagna (R-Genoa Township) says he’s unsure why lawmakers only passed one part of the Reagan Tokes Act in December. But he says the part that lawmakers didn’t pass that deals with monitoring inmates after they are released is important.
“We just can’t have dangerous felons wandering around homeless with no guardrails or support. I mean, that’s a recipe for disaster.”
One change from the original bill employs the current criminal background check system used by police agencies for GPS monitoring rather than creating a separate database. The man convicted of killing Tokes was wearing a GPS system that wasn’t being actively monitored.
