In Part 1 of this article, I outlined what I believe are the significant flaws in the Risk Assessment Instrument (the RAI) New York courts are required to use to assess sex offender risk under the Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA or Megan’s Law, Article 6-C of the Correction Law). Under SORA, courts are required to designate offenders as being at low, moderate or high risk to re-offend. The rankings not only determine the length and intrusiveness of sex offender registration and community notification, which often last for life, but vital collateral matters, like whether offenders may live within 1,000 feet of a school, receive Section 8 housing vouchers or live in public housing. The RAI is primarily designed to measure the risk that a sex offender will re-offend and the harm which would be caused by a re-offense.
I sad before, I’ll say again. Considering well over 98% of new sex crime is committed by non-registrants, “risk” should be assessed as low to negligible absent proof to the contrary. I have a very hard time believing that the very few registrant recidivists didn’t show some kind of indication outside of the crime that led to registration in the first place that re-offense was likely.
Sounds like in NY, this “risk assessment instrument” DETERMINES your punishment after your sentence is satisfied lol.
Is there a way we can see it without having to register at law.com? Thanks!
yet these flawed RAI’s reemerge in california’s new law, though under a different name (“static”)