DeKALB | State Representative Dennis Reboletti, R-Elmhurst, has proposed a bill that would create a public murderer database.

Rebolettri’s bill was proposed over outrage of the murder of an Eastern Illinois student in 1998. Justin Boulay strangled Andrea Will in his Charleston apartment after she had broken up with him a few months earlier.

Both were students at Eastern Illinois University.

Boulay was released from prison in November after serving half of his 24 year sentence. Truth-in-sentencing laws require people convicted of violent acts to serve a minimum of 85 percent of their sentences. Because Boulay was sentenced before truth-in-sentencing laws he was able to take a day off his prison sentence for every day of good behavior.

According to Rebolettri’s bill, anyone who was convicted of first-degree murder before truth-in-sentencing laws were imposed would have to register with this public database for at least 10 years.

Police Lt. Carl Leoni said that it would not hurt to have a public database but that it would do little to deter murders.

“I think that it would have very little to do with murders in any area,” Leoni said. “Murderers have a particular frame of mind so it would have little effect in preventing them from committing murder.”

Leoni also said the public does have a right to know whether or not a convicted murderer is living in their neighborhood.

The public database would include the convicted murderer’s picture, name, place of residence, and where they work, along with other information.

Keri Burchfield, assistant professor of sociology, said this public database will not be beneficial to the community.

“The limited research that exists on the efficiency of these crime registries suggests that people don’t use them,” Burchfield said. “Even when they do, it does not change their behavior.”

Burchfield also said that people probably will not consult this type of database when looking for a place to live.

“Murder is such a rare crime, and it tends to be very spatially concentrated,” Burchfield said. “Thus, community research would suggest that neighborhoods where murderers may be likely to live are not the types of neighborhoods where this type of social control would [help].”

David Fairchild, freshman engineering major, said he thinks this would be a good idea.

“That kind of information should be public and I don’t see why it would be a problem becoming public,” Fairchild said. “The murderer took the rights of the people he killed, his right to privacy should be taken away.”