When People with Intellectual Disabilities Are Punished, Parents Pay the Price
Carol Nesteikis, 66, has never committed a crime.
But for two years, from six in the evening to six in the morning the next day, she lived under de facto house arrest with her 32-year-old son, Adam. It wasn’t because she wanted to. The home itself was a kind of punishment, she says.
Adam was sentenced to 10 years on the sex offender registry and two years of probation in Illinois for exposing himself to a neighbor, something Nesteikis says he was coerced to do by a man who was abusing Adam. Since the victim of Adam’s offense lived nearby, Adam was required to move out of his family’s house the same day he pleaded guilty—and for two years was ordered to remain inside his new quarters during the evening.
