Sex Offenders (H 6242, H 5749, H 5743, S 930)

On a positive note, the Assembly sent a package of sex offender legislation back to committee, killing the bills for the year. The bills included such “tough on crime” measures as making it a felony for offenders to ever enter schools, parks or similar locations; requiring them to wear a GPS monitoring device while challenging their administratively-designated level of dangerousness; and requiring landlords who had ever been convicted of sex offenses to report their sex offender status to tenants. The ACLU argued that such “tough on crime” legislation does little to protect people from sex crimes, and only makes it more difficult for a past offender to successfully reenter society.