Sex Offender Registration and Notification (H 5456)

The ACLU testified in May in opposition to legislation overhauling the state’s sex offender registration and community notification laws. The proposed legislation would replace the existing law with federal standards so costly that few other states have chosen to implement them. The federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) includes draconian public notification requirements, lifetime sex offender registration even for juvenile offenders, and retroactive registration for persons whose offenses may have occurred decades earlier. 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 known to the perpetrator, not by strangers. Similar legislation has been passed in the House for the last two years, but has not received a Senate vote. The bill was not voted out of committee this year.