Personal Injury Law

Illinois nursing homes continue to be raided in search of wanted felons

By Kris Briggs

Rockford's Alden Park Strathmoor Nursing Home is the latest elder-care facility that has been raided by the Illinois Attorney General's Office. The surprise inspection resulted in the arrest of two residents, Stateline reported.

Our Illinois nursing home negligence lawyers continue to field calls from people who are concerned about the conditions of a nursing home or elder care facility. Recently, state officials have targeted homes for inspections in search of felons or wanted criminals who are living amongst the elderly population.

?About seven months ago we started doing unannounced checks of across the state of Illinois to determine whether or not nursing homes were identifying offenders and whether or not those offenders living there had a safety plan in place,? says Attorney General Lisa Madigan. As hard as it is to believe, Illinois law permits dangerous felons to live in many of the state's nursing homes, so long as staff has a "safety plan" in place to limit the potential for problems.

The check in Rockford found four residents of the home with outstanding criminal warrants: A 51-year-old resident wanted for DUI in Cook County; a 44-year-old wanted for failure to appear in court and for stolen property in Will County; and two others who were wanted on warrants but were not taken into custody because of medical reasons.

A representative of the home said background checks are conducted but that they do not show the outstanding warrants. The home has about 200 residents.

Full post as published by Illinois Injury Law Blog on August 14, 2010 (boomark / email).