JESSICA'S LAW

[cdebra]

I have the full text of the Jessica Marie Lunsford Act. I will post it below.

HB 1877 — Jessica Lunsford Act

by Criminal Justice Committee and Reps. Dean, Kravitz, Rice, and others (CS/CS/SB 1216 by Justice Appropriations Committee; Criminal Justice Committee; and Senators Argenziano, Fasano, Klein, Aronberg, Haridopolos, Lynn, Smith, Crist, Miller, and Campbell)

The bill (Chapter 2005-28, L.O.F.), entitled the “Jessica Lunsford Act,” contains the following major provisions:
• Mandates a 25-year minimum mandatory term of imprisonment followed by lifetime
supervision with electronic monitoring for persons convicted of lewd and lascivious
molestation of a child under 12 (currently there is no lifetime supervision mandate).
• Expands from 20 years to 30 years the period of time before someone can petition to have
the sexual predator designation removed.
• Creates a new aggravating circumstance to qualify a murdering sexual predator for a death sentence.
• Creates two new 3rd degree felonies: (1) for harboring a registered sex
offender/predator, and (2) for tampering with an electronic monitoring device.
• Strengthens and expands the background screening requirement for contract employees working on school grounds. There is already a screening requirement in current law. This amendment clarifies that the screening requirement applies to individuals who are permitted access on school grounds when students are present.
• Requires the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to provide information to local law enforcement officials about sexual predators and sexual offenders who fail to register or fail to respond to address verification attempts or otherwise abscond from registration requirements.
• Requires the Department of Corrections (DOC) to purchase and operate fingerprintreading equipment for probation offices to better track the probationer when they are rearrested.
• Increases the penalty for the failure of a sex offender or sexual predator to register and creates a penalty for failure to report to the sheriff’s office.
• Enhances the penalty for lewd and lascivious molestation of a child younger than 12 years of age from a 1st degree felony to a life felony.
• Requires county misdemeanor probation officials to search the sex offender/predator registry.
• Requires contracts with private misdemeanor probation providers to include procedures for accessing criminal history records of probationers.
• Requires the Office of Program Policy and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) tostudy every three years the registry and report findings to the Legislature every three years. Also, OPPAGA is asked to look at sentencing information and plea negotiation practices and report back to the Legislature by March of 2006.
• Requires FDLE to implement a bi-annual check-in process for sexual predators and offenders. Twice a year the registered offenders will need to report to their local county jail or be subject to criminal prosecution.
• Almost triples the funding of electronic monitoring units used by state probation officials and requires the purchase of the new units to be competitively bid.
• Creates a task force within FDLE to examine the collection and dissemination of criminal history records.
• Directs DOC to review and report serious offenses committed by probationers.
• Directs DOC to develop a risk assessment system to monitor high risk offenders and to provide cumulative histories to the court on high risk sex offenders.
• Requires a court to make a finding that the sex offender on probation does not pose a danger to the public before he or she is released with or without bail on a violation of probation.
• Expands the types of mandatory conditions that the court must impose on sex offenders when they sentence them to community control supervision, such as maintaining a driving log and submitting to polygraph testing. We already have these conditions forthose offenders placed on sex offender probation; this amendment expands it to all community controllees.
• Prospectively mandates that the Parole Commission order electronic monitoring for persons who are leaving prison on conditional release and who have been convicted of various unlawful sex acts against a child 15 years of age or younger.
• Retroactively requires the court to electronically monitor registered sex offenders and sexual predators whose victims were 15 years of age or younger and who violate their probation or community control and the court imposes a subsequent term of probation and community control.
• Prospectively mandates the court to order electronic monitoring for persons placed on probation or community control who: are convicted or previously convicted of various unlawful sex acts against a child 15 years of age or younger; or are registered sexual predators.

These provisions were approved by the Governor and take effect September 1, 2005.
Vote: Senate 40-0; House 115-0

[aslan1976]

Sex Offenders: Flaws in the System & Effective Alternatives
August 2005
All Content © 2005 SOhopeful International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This document has been prepared in response to legislation and ordinances currently pending before municipalities and states that address violent crimes against children by creating a proximity barrier.

SOhopeful International, a group committed to helping address the tragedies caused by sex crimes, is providing input to law and policy-makers in an attempt to help identify alternative and more effective ways to prevent sex crimes against children and to deal with the crimes that have already occurred.

The bills before municipalities and states and the current legislative approach to the problem raise some interesting questions. Will imposing proximity and residency restrictions stop future sex crimes against children? Have proximity and residency restrictions been effective in stopping sex crimes against children, or have they just resulted in a lack of successful reintegration of registrants? Has it resulted in reduced levels of crime? Are there other programs or policies that might be more effective and Constitutional than arbitrary proximity and residency restrictions for all offenders?

SOhopeful has been actively seeking effective programs that provide alternative and cost-effective approaches to this complex, difficult problem. This document presents some of those approaches.

The three main points of this document are as follows:

· The problem of sex crimes in general and sex crimes against children in particular are misunderstood by the public and by many lawmakers.
· These misunderstandings result in expensive and minimally effective laws, regulations and policies.
· Alternatives now in use by some States can be applied nationwide that would increase public safety while saving taxpayer dollars.

This document is designed to provide a clearer understanding of the facts to help lawmakers and the public deal with the problem in a more effective and fiscally responsible manner.
A brief summary of each of these points is given below.

1. THE SEX CRIME PROBLEM IS MISUNDERSTOOD
Before presenting solutions, it is necessary to address some common misconceptions regarding sex crimes against children. It is because of these misunderstandings about the real nature of sex crimes, victims of sex crimes and sex offenders that Federal and some State governments are spending large sums for ineffective policies that do not increase public safety. One indicator of this lack of effectiveness is the continuance in sex crimes against children despite a huge increase in the number of sex offenders that are incarcerated. Here are some of the common misconceptions.

· Aren’t all sex offenders perverted strangers who sneak up and snatch unsuspecting children? Although news stories about gruesome crimes lead us to think this, the facts show a different story. Federal and State data show that most sex crimes against children are committed by someone the child knows—either a family member or close associate. Under 10 percent of sex crimes against children are committed by a stranger. Sexual abuse of children is not typically committed by strangers.

· Aren’t most of the America’s missing children abducted by strangers? No, in fact the DOJ statistics show how many missing children were runaways (99% of which return home safely, according to their statistics) and how many were abducted by a family member. They don’t list the number abducted by strangers, because the number is so small, as shown in table 3 of the NISMART-2 2002 Bulletin, “National Estimates of Missing Children: An Overview.”

· Aren’t children who have been abducted by strangers typically murdered? A 2002 U.S. Department of Justice study showed that 60% of the children abducted by strangers or slight acquaintances during a 12-month study period were not killed. This statistical data relates to all abductions, not specifically regarding sex offenders.

· Aren’t all or most sex crimes committed by people formerly convicted of a sex crime (habitual sex offenders)? Federal and State crime statistics and data on recidivism (re-arrest) rates for tens of thousands of sex offenders show that 87 to 97% of all convicted sex offenders who have been released do not commit any more sex crimes. Time spans in the studies ranged from 3 to 13 years. The offenders included those who had committed crimes against children, as well as those who had committed crimes against adults. A 1994 U.S. Department of Justice study of recidivism of sex offenders versus other ex-convicts showed that 87% of sex crimes during the study period were committed by someone other than a convicted sex offender.

· Aren’t all sex offenders warped or psychologically damaged adults? Data from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics 2000 report, “Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics” show that a surprising 40% of reported sex crimes against children are committed by other children (under the age of 10, not by adults. So not all sex offenders are adults.

· Once a sex offender, always a sexual predator. There is an important difference between the terms “sex offender” and “sexual predator.” According to Grubin and Winegate statistics, apparent sexual predators constitute somewhere between 2.5% and 13% of the population of sex offenders. Theses predators are likely to commit other sex crimes. The other 87% to 97% of sex offenders are very unlikely to commit any more sex crimes. This shows that not all sex offenders are sexual predators. Only a small percentage of them are. These predators can be identified through existing assessment tools. If these people are not incarcerated or civilly committed, they should have the highest level of police attention, in order to protect the public. The low-risk sex offenders are a different group with a different risk level and should be treated differently, using programs outlined in this report. This approach will result in significant cost savings without increasing risks to the public.

· Abuse of the Predator Label. The stated legislative intent of Megan's Law specifies that the registry will list 'the most violent and predatory sex offenders'; however, people caught up in this situation are most times given the appalling choice only between 25 years to life if you go to trial, or accept a plea bargain. What they are not told, is the plea bargain countless times includes the predator label and registering for life. Unfortunately many times this includes one-crime one-victim, non-violent and no-victim (public exposure that was not even witnessed by anyone) offenders, even those who were never officially charged or convicted of a sex offense and the severity of the sentence and label depends highly on public and judicial attitude of the day.

The misconceptions listed above are common and understandable, given the media coverage of high-profile cases. However, unless lawmakers and policy makers educate themselves on the true situation, they will be hampered by this distorted view of reality and thus they will be prevented from effectively developing workable solutions.

2. CURRENT LAWS DO NOT EFFECTIVELY REDUCE SEX CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN
Congress recognizes that the current State and Federal legislation is inadequate to address the issue of sex crimes in general and sex crimes against children in particular. This may be one reason why there are currently so many bills before Congress related to this issue. Admirable work has been done, particularly with regard to addressing pornography, Internet pornography, human trafficking, and interstate transportation of minors for sexual purposes. We applaud these efforts.

However, we also recognize that many other current polices and approaches are based on misunderstandings of the wider picture of sex crimes against children. It is for this reason that the some laws are not working as intended, and we recommend that the approach should be modified, rather than just strengthening existing policies or enacting arbitrary and unconstitutional proximity and residency restrictions.

Examples are given below.
2.1. Deterrence
The idea behind deterrence is that sufficiently harsh penalties will discourage people from committing certain acts. This is true if the following assumptions are made about the person considering committing the acts:

1. He knows of the harsh penalties
2. He is mentally capable of controlling his own actions
3. He is mentally capable of evaluating alternatives and of connecting his actions to potential consequences.

This report will demonstrate that, for the vast majority of typical sex offenders, these assumptions are not applicable. This is because the vast majority or sex offenders are first-time offenders who have no knowledge of the severe legal penalties, and the small percentage of repeat sex offenders are addicts and/or mentally deranged that cannot control their own actions and are not capable of connecting their actions to potential consequences. Additional information on this point is presented in Section 4.1.

Because sex crimes are not committed by the types of people originally assumed by lawmakers, the policy of deterrence through the use of expensive mandatory minimum sentences will be completely ineffective in preventing sex crimes against children. Mandatory minimum and zero tolerance has gone horribly wrong with drug laws, i.e., letting out high risk career criminals to place and keep a person in jail that was arrested with a marijuana cigarette. At the same time, this policy will result in a burgeoning prison population, huge incarceration costs, and a great increase in the number of people on welfare and Medicaid. It will also drastically reduce reporting of child sexual abuse. If the goal is to reduce sex crimes against children, mandatory minimum sentences will not only fail, but will waste taxpayer dollars that could be used for far more effective programs, and actually endanger more children.

2.2. Registration of Sex Offenders
The idea behind the National Sex Offender Registry is that law enforcement personnel need to be aware of the presence of dangerous repeat offenders in their jurisdictions. This registry will accomplish that goal, and it is a worthy one.

Yet the use of the registry, as it is currently configured, is based on the underlying misconceptions listed above. As this report will demonstrate, most of these crimes are not committed by habitual offenders, as was originally assumed, but by first-time offenders who are highly unlikely to reoffend. Current proposals before Congress will go a long way toward distinguishing between these two groups, through the use of risk assessments. This approach is a very positive step.

However, some aspects of the registry can have unintended effects. One is the clogging of the registry with the names of people who are not repeat sex offenders, and who are not dangerous to society. Section 4.2 of his report will provide more information about this alarming trend. The presence of low-risk offenders on the registry interferes with law enforcement identification and tracking of high-risk offenders, and may actually increase the level of risk to the public.

Another problem with the registry has to do with Federal law enforcement grants to the States. The linking of Federal funding to the number of names on the registry incentivises the States to add names to the registry. One way this is accomplished is by expanding the definition of sex crime far more than Congress intended, (brushing against someone, urinating in public, skinny dipping, mooning etc., improper perhaps, but should not be, but are, considered ‘sex crimes’). The shocking effect of these expanded definitions will be addressed in Section 4.4.

2.3. Community Notification
Notifying the public about the presence of sex offenders in the community is supposed to alert the public to watch over their children and avoid habitual sex offenders, thus reducing sex crimes against children. Again, it is based on the mistaken assumption that most sex crimes are committed by habitual sex offenders.

Unintended effects of this practice include revealing the identity of victims of intrafamilial abuse, traumatizing family members of low-risk sex offenders, and promoting community unrest and violence. Studies in two states have demonstrated that community notification did not result in a decrease in the number of sex crimes against children.

3. WORKABLE SOLUTIONS ARE AVAILABLE
Solutions based on a clearer understanding of the nature of sex crimes have been developed.

These include:
· Treatment of high-risk offenders separately from that of low-risk offenders.
· Civil commitment if needed for high-risk offenders
· Treatment programs for low-risk offenders and victims
· Prevention programs for teens and young adults to prevent sex abuse through development of successful coping skills and through understanding of appropriate boundaries

3.1 Handle Sex Offenders Based on Risk
Current proposals before Congress incorporate the concept of risk assessment for identifying high-risk offenders. To effectively deal with sex crimes, these high-risk offenders, once identified, must be treated differently from low risk offenders.

3.2 Consider Civil Commitment for High-Risk Offenders
For the small number of habitual, predatory offenders, risk assessment tools can be applied to identify these individuals. If necessary, civil commitment may be employed to isolate them from the public. This would preclude their commitment of any more crimes.

3.3 Rehabilitate Low-Risk Offenders
For low risk offenders, the City of Tucson, Arizona has a program called RESTORE that is used in cases of sex abuse within a family context. It can also be used for low-risk, first-time non-violent offenders. At this point, the re-offense rate for sex offenders who have completed the RESTORE program is zero percent. In addition, the program has received exceptionally high marks from victims. Can a 100% level of effectiveness be achieved through mandatory minimum sentences? SOhopeful recommends that a nationwide program patterned after RESTORE be used to deal with the majority of sex crimes against juveniles, which are intrafamilial and non-violent.

3.4 Use Prevention Programs
Prevention programs that teach teens in our sex-saturated society about healthy boundaries can help prevent teen-on-teen sexual abuse, and abuse of younger children by teens, which is a growing problem. Programs that teach healthy coping skills to teens and young adults can help prevent future sexual abuse, because intrafamilial sex abuse is often caused by people who are under severe emotional or financial stress and who lack appropriate coping skills.

This report provides information that is intended to assist lawmakers and policy makers in dealing with effective, financially responsible programs for dealing with sex abuse of children.

[aslan1976]

That last post is legnthy but education is the key to keeping our children safe. Parents should never rely on the government to do their jobs! For the sake and safety of your kids, please take this seriously. Jessica's law will not, has not, and never has saved a single child from harm. Focusing on the smallest statistical threat to your kids and making feel good laws that do not address the issues at hand will not work!

The bottom line is, if your child is going to be molested it WILL be in your home by someone you know and trust! The only way we will REALLY keep our kids safe is by examining our comfort zones! This is very important.