Sex Offenders (H 7075, S 2572)

The legislature again considered bills to expand the scope of the state’s 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.  As in previous years, the ACLU testified before the House and Senate judiciary committees 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.  In response to the ACLU’s testimony, the Senate voted to create a study commission to evaluate the feasibility of implementing SORNA in the future.  No such commission was created by the House.