SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —It may get tougher to track sex offenders under a new state policy California is exploring. Right now, California has an estimated 78,000 sex offenders, all of whom must, by law, register with the state for life.
But Thursday, the Sex Offender Management Board started moving forward to change the rules, so that so-called lower-level offenders released from prison would be eligible to register for just 10 to 20 years – after which no one would monitor them at all. Full Article
“It would apply only to sex offenders convicted in the future.”? So those of us already registering will have to stew in this lousy mess for the rest of our life? I think and hope someone made a faux pas here.
According to the news commentator this will not have any effect on anyone already registering, only on future registrants. That sucks!
They tend to retroactively punish us with new restrictions, so, we ought to also get retroactive relief when a new law provides it.
In Colorado after the marijuana law was passed, everybody convicted before the new law were released with nothing on their record. In California, when the law changed to force Lifetime Registration, there were thousands of offenders that were convicted 10, 20 years before the new law were told they had to start lifetime registration. So there is still hope that they will do the right thing.
This law does not go far enough, but every little law reversal is something that can help all of us. I watched this story on KNTV Channel 2 news from the Bay Area.
This makes me sick!!! Retroactive is okay when it comes to eroding the rights of citizens. But, when it comes to preserving rights, hey, let’s not go retroactive. This sinks to high hell!!!!
I would say there could be thousands of equal protection lawsuits looming for those of us stuck in the registration quagmire. Retroactive application of the law should work both ways!
Was so excited reading the article, heart racing … light at the end of the tunnel, mabye!!! … until I got to the part about it not be retroactive. Horrible …
It should definitely be retroactive, and the equal right protection law might help us here. There is no reason to punish ex offenders worse than future ones, and if they realize that low level offenders are not a threat, then neither are current low level offenders. They will have to clean up this mess.
I would get neither too upset nor too excited about this article at this point. I see nothing at the CASOMB http://casomb.org/ about this proposal.
Wait a minute!…Do I get this right?…We have to comply with any and every action against us retroactively that is punitive but with this new law it only applies to those that are newly convicted? Really?!?
This is not a very high grade news report, so I have to be a bit doubtful about some of the detail. For one, it not only makes no sense not to make it retroactive, but I’m not even sure it is constitutional to punish those convicted earlier more harshly — just a slight problem with equal protection about that. (Oh, wait, I forgot, registrants are not being punished.) Thank you Janice for asking into it.
I note, all other comments about this aside, this is good simply to have THAT board saying registration should not be for life, limit it. And that give the lawmakers a bit of political cover to pass such a bill, on the say-so of the “expert” board.
I also note, the story keeps calling it a rule change. No, it would be a new law, not a regulation change. They can’t even do that via a regulation change. And thus, at the end of the story it says they are seeking a legislator to carry the bill, because they need a bill, a law change, not a rule change by the board.
I also am outraged as always that it refers only to sex offenders released from prison. Not all sex offenders go to prison! No misdemeanant sex offenders do. Its even possible that some low level felons manage to avoid prison, might just go to jail. All these news reports constantly refer to something applying after sex offenders are released form prison – constantly reinforcing the idea that all sex offenders go to prison, all are only for serious felonies. Gee, just look at the comments, with people even saying that only serious offenders go to prison, and so no sex offenders should get such relief! These people have no idea what kind of offenses are caught up in registration.
I also note, I hope this rule is not for 10 years of registration, but simply 10 years after conviction. What if you register for a year, then move out of state for 9 years, then return. If this is 10 years of registration, I think you would then have to register for nine more years again! No, you cannot have to count it as how many years you have registered, but how long it is since your conviction. If you managed to register for only a day, and now 10 years has passed, this relief should apply to you — because the point is the time passage shows you are rehabilitated. And let’s link any assessment directly to the offense, not a higher level risk for some people that comes from an assessment. Indecent exposure, minimum registration time, simply stop after that time, no longer because of some bizarre assessment, no application needed to stop, your time is up you simply stop as it is 10 years after conviction, you are now in California, you simply do not have to register if it is more than 10 years since your conviction, you don’t have to go sometime after 10 years since your conviction, register, get assessed, then apply to be allowed to stop registering.
Let’s get this bill right; let’s not get all the wrong stuff in the Ammiano bill all over again. And of course, let’s make it retroactive!
Guys, calm down. This is wonderful news. If the California Sex Offender Management Board is suggesting this, this is wonderful news. I strongly believe this was a typo. It wouldn’t even make sense for anyone to institute a new like like this without affecting those convicted in the past. It makes no sense. Stay tuned.
Could this all be part of a larger plan to become substantially SORNA compliant?
From what I understood from it is that they want to lower the number of registrants. So I would assume they want to remove low risk offenders that are already on it. I do want to know that if someone is not on Megans Law but is a registered sex offender does this include them in it?