And they knew all along ...

I had a plan for today’s blog. I was going to provide a history of Virginia sex offender legislation ... but then I came across this in a 1999 article in the Washington Post. Senator Howell introduced the original bill to make the Virginia Sex Offender Registry public. She is also the patron for SB590 in the 2008 session – a bill that would extend the duration of registration for thousands of low level offenders.

I [the reporter] also raised the question of effectiveness with Sen. Janet Howell (D-Reston), the state legislator who sponsored the bill that created the Virginia site. She told me: "This is the easy, feel-good, politically popular approach, but it's only one little piece of what could be done. I don't think it does much to protect the public, and I fear it will give the public a false sense of security. Most sex offenders are never caught, much less convicted. Most children are in danger from people they know rather than from a stranger, and many offenders listed on the Internet are no longer a danger."

So, I’m trying to get this straight. The bill patron admitted up front that a public registry was just “politically popular” and wouldn’t “protect the public.” Further, she admitted that “many offenders” on the registry pose no danger.

If the registry isn’t effective in preventing sexual abuse or assault, then why implement it in the first place? Once implemented, why expand it? The constitutionality of the registry has been held up only because it is "regulatory" and not "punitive". However, if is serves no purpose, then it becomes clearly punitive.

Senator Howell seems interested only in the “politically popular” piece – not any actual efforts to combat the problem of sexual abuse.

Can somebody explain why this is acceptable?

Her current bill, SB590, reclassifies “carnal knowledge of a minor 13-15” to a “sexually violent offense.” This is Virginia’s “statutory rape” or “consensual sex” statute. Although the Senate approved a provision to allow young offenders under 21 and less than 5 years older than their “victim” to petition the court to have the “violent” designation removed, the House Criminal Law sub-committee removed this provision, citing concerns about votes and bloggers.

We are fast on a path to put young consensual sex offenders on the registry for life as “violent sexual offenders”. Does anybody have a problem with that?

This bill arbitrarily extends registration periods for low level offenders from 10 years to 15 or 25 years. Interestingly, we already have a statute that prevents noncompliant offenders from getting off the registry.

Section 9.1-910 of the Code of Virginia (that section related to removal from the registry) was previously amended to remove the automatic removal of lower level offenders from the registry after 10 years. It currently requires a petition that cannot be filed less than 10 years from the date of original conviction OR any subsequent conviction for any felony or FTR. A FTR could be as simple as neglecting to provide state police with information regarding a new email or IM within 30 minutes (despite their being no mechanism in the state police departments to handle this requirement). The court also considers total criminal history and may hear witnesses for both sides. This seems to be an adequate procedural safeguard to prevent people who are not compliant from getting off the registry. Extending registration periods for all lower level offenders simply punishes those who are doing what they’re supposed to do!

The registry doesn’t do anything helpful for anybody and has been repeatedly shown to do more harm than good. Senator Howell has admitted that it is useless for community safety. Even if it were useful, we already have procedures in place to prevent people from getting off the registry if they aren’t following the rules. Yet, this bill to retroactively punish people is zipping through the General Assembly.

I have operated for so long under the premise that many legislators BELIEVE that what they are doing is right. It is incredibly disturbing to discover that Senator Howell knew all along that this was the wrong thing to do and now is working to make a bad situation worse.