Sex Offenders (H 5129, S 833)

As in past years, the Affiliate testified against efforts to expand the scope of the state’s current sex offender registration and notification laws.  The federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), which the Attorney General sought to have the legislature implement, includes draconian public notification requirements, lifetime sex offender registration even for juvenile offenders, as well as retroactive registration for persons whose offenses may have occurred decades earlier. The estimated fiscal costs for implementing the federal law are so high that only seven states in the country have opted to come into compliance with SORNA.  The ACLU testified that notification laws hinder rehabilitation and ignore the reality of sex offenses, which is that over 90% of them are committed against victims whom the perpetrator knows, not by strangers. The legislation did not progress past the committee hearings.