After an emotional debate, state lawmakers on Saturday gave final legislative approval to a controversial bill that would end the lifetime listing of many convicted sex offenders on a public registry in California.
The bill, which was shelved then revived, was sent to the governor on the last day of the legislative session with Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) calling it one of the most difficult votes she has cast.
“It’s not an easy thing to do, but sometimes we have to make hard votes,” Gonzalez Fletcher told her colleagues, adding that being a mom made it difficult to change a system aimed at tracking rapists and child molesters.
The measure by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) would allow, starting in 2021, for the names of those who committed lower-level, nonviolent sex crimes or who are judged to be low risks to re-offend to be removed from the registry after 10 or 20 years, depending on the crime. The offender must petition the local district attorney for a review.
Wiener called his bill “a long overdue reform of California’s broken sex offender registry.”
Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign the bill.
“SB 384 proposes thoughtful and balanced reforms that allow prosecutors and law enforcement to focus their resources on tracking sex offenders who pose a real risk to public safety, rather than burying officers in paperwork that has little public benefit,” said Ali Bay, a spokeswoman for the governor.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey sought the change because the current registry has grown to a difficult-to-manage 105,000 people, which reduces its value to law enforcement trying to solve sex crimes by checking those on the list.
Because the registry is public, it also punishes people who have not committed new crimes for decades, including some who engaged in consensual sex, bill supporters argued.
“The only other states that still use this Draconian, outdated, ineffective law are Alabama, South Carolina and Florida,” Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) said during the floor debate.
First let’s remind ourselves that it took 70 years to get this high number and we have a lot more going for us now then it did throughout the years we have DNA and other high tech investigation now fingerprints are gone through by computer now . we have many new exams that help law enforcement and well we have gay marriages now so the sever wrongfulness of what and why the registration was even brought into the world is more or less over.
We now know that the majority of information that caused so much fear was mostly just hype, propaganda, misinformation and with intent lies . a couple if examples would be ” Stranger Danger” its not some stranger jumping out from the bushes its step-daddy big brother, the babysitter the neighbor across the street and friend of the family.
We know that only 3 to 5 percent of all sex offenders are dangerous to the community at large coined The sexual Violent Predators and the serial sexual pedophiles these are your persons who truly are dangerous to society and to the community.
We know now that report of sex crimes are coming down (and has been for over 20 plus years) Not UP.
We now know that the sexual offender is the least of all repeat criminal acts Not the most.
We now know that the majority of sex crimes we’re committed without the use of force, or violence or fear or threats.
We now know that over (not under) 65 percent if all sex crimes we’re committed by persons between 11 and 17 years of age.
We now know that where a person lives does not make anybody more or less safe.
Of the so called 50,000 missing children per year was not by any suspicious activity , over 65 percent turns out to be run away teens who retune back home unharmed and another 20 percent are children taken by one parent by the other parent due to visitation and child support situations.
This list goes on and on but I think I have made my point. The registration is a joke and its broke and the tier system works and will do what the registration list is supposed to do and that is to help keep the people safe from dangerous sex offender by helping law enforcement it was and is only a tool that was made dull but the tier system will help to make it sharp again.
I’m sorry but your point is mute! The registry is harmful period. It is used by the general public to shame/punish, and meting out punishment for a crime was NEVER to be given to the public. This is why we have government bodies, i.e. the state and federal government.
I used to think that the registry should only be used as a tool for law enforcement to keep track of ex offenders. I now see that even in their hands, it’s used as a way to seek out individuals for harm. See Stanford Prison Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Even using a Tier System will not ensure a safer community. It will only increase the opportunity for vigilantism and ostracizing individuals (and their families) from society.
Lee – i’m a little confused by your comments this is actually a bill that will remove people who formally had lifetime registration to being able to get off in a particular amount of time. The part that does bother me about this bill is that the review to remove is going to be granted or not by the district attorney? That seems like a conflict of interest? And are they qualified to determine who is dangerous and who’s not? in my experience district attorneys think everybody’s a criminal except themselves LOL
First of all there was no tier classification system in California so crimes were viewed using classification systems of similar crimes and given a value. Many of those such as a single count of possession of child porn are typically tier 1 or unlikely to reoffend.
ALL of those will be reclassified to tier 3 or the worst of the worst – so those who had hope (and rightfully so since there is a big difference between looking at a single photo in the privacy of your home and raping a child – not on the California registry after this is signed) and thought that a tier system would get them off are now on for LIFE WITH NO POSSIBILITY OF GETTING OFF THE CALIFORNIA SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY.
The devil is in the details and the headline is very misleading. Also everyone must petition the court to get off when their time has elapsed. No one is automatically removed…well how many have the money to hire an attorney to do this? How many will be denied after they DO go through all the time and money needed to get in front of a court? Very FEW I am guessing.
These are just a FEW of the changes they added to the bill to get it to pass. It actually dashes the hope of thousands of registered citizens and removes any possibility of this nightmare ending until they DIE!
Read the comments on the thread at the California Reform board below:
http://all4consolaws.org/2017/09/ca-gov-brown-supports-bill-sent-to-him-that-would-end-lifetime-listing-of-many-sex-offenders-on-public-registry/
This newest incarnation of the hit list known as the registry is moving thousands from tier 1 to tier 3! This is a terrible bill and is further destroying lives and killing the hope that so many had of getting their lives back.
It is exactly the opposite. It is making being on the registry a guaranteed lifetime punishment which will clearly only get worse with even more restrictions and now totally killed the possibility of change for thousands who once had some small hope! Terrible
I got from this they are looking to minimize the list and remove the low risk offenders. More for cost and efficiency than humanity. Am i missing something?
Florida gets called out….Good.
About time someone said it.
Where do we get official records of how many times the registry has successfully solved a crime?
It didn’t find Amber Hagermans killer and the FBI interviewed all the RSO’s in the area and polygraphed the ones without an alibi.
It didn’t finger Ottis Toole
And Donald Smith wasn’t caught because he was on the registry, he was caught because they had him on camera.
I think it is a valid public safety question to know how Law Enforcement has made use of the registry for so many years.
It seems like simple analytics to review each states registry and see how many RSO’s have new convictions after their initial conviction (illustrating KNOWN recidivism) than review each new offense report to see how the registry contributed to the investigation.
That would be the last right thing that ” they, the powers that be”, will do. They would then have to admit that the registration is a catch all.
What’s stopping us then? At least some states allow you to download their entire registry as a monolithic list.
What we’d need to be cautious about is the appearance of high recidivism caused my multiple sentencing dates, but that’s remedied by investigating all unique sentencing events. I don’t know how much information you can get on an individual case but I think officer testimony that he used the registry as a crucial investigative tool would turn up if it were true.