CA: Senate Passes Tiered Registry Bill (SB 421)
The Senate today, in a vote of 24 to 10, passed the Tiered Registry Bill (SB 421). Prior to the vote, the bill’s author — Sen. Scott Wiener — explained why a tiered registry is necessary. His views were supported by Sen. Nancy Skinner, Chair of the Public Safety Committee, as well as co-author Sen. Joel Anderson.
During his presentation, Sen. Wiener describe the current registry as broken and outdated. He added that the registry, which includes more than 100,000 people, is so large that it is useless.
Sen. Anderson subsequently stated that there are too many people on the registry today and as a result those who pose a current danger are camouflaged by those who don’t. Sen. Skinner talked about the significant adverse impact that the registry has upon both registrants and members of their families. She said that registrants often suffer from public humiliation, stigma, unemployment, homelessness and even vigilante violence.
Sen. Ben Allen praised Sen. Wiener for his courage as author of SB 421. He added that the bill is necessary in order to fix the state’s registry that currently includes individuals who urinated in public decades ago.
“Today we saw courage in action as senators on both sides of the aisle — Democrat and Republican — voted in support of a tiered registry,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci. “We thank the 24 senators who voted in support of SB 421 as well as the many co-sponsors of the bill, including Equality California, the CA Sex Offender Management Board and the victims rights group CalCASA.”
In order to become law, SB 421 must be passed by the Assembly where it will be considered by the Public Safety and Appropriations Committees prior to a floor vote no later than September 15, 2017. If the Assembly passes the bill, it must be signed by the Governor no later than October 15, 2017.
By clean up, is there the hope that Florida will remove the 10,000 registrants NOT in the state, but had the misfortune of vacationing in Florida years ago?
For your reading enjoyment…this is SORNAs justification of FLs status as compliant (or compliant enough to get funds)
https://www.smart.gov/pdfs/sorna/Florida.pdf
Of interest is the information about tiers? Not sure I get that – if I understand them correctly FL has implemented what is needed for tiers and yet FL does not have tiers? Strange….
I must admit when I first saw the headline of this post my heart skipped a beat of excitement and then I saw CA. I am not sure of all the logistics concerning FL but remember FL has a different state constitution etc.
I remember that when I was new to all of this I learned about the AWA and it’s recommend tier system. I realized that in my sons case it would be beneficial. Then I was appalled to find out that FL was considered one of the states that had adopted and complied with the AWA (and therefore was receiving federal funds) – that was very confusing to me and I contacted SORNA inquiring why FL was considered compliant when they obviously were not? The answer I received was my first lesson in just how mired down these inane laws are in politics and revenue. I was told that FL had complied with enough percentage of the AWA to be qualified but they were allowed to add (at the state level) things that were far and beyond what the AWA dictates. So although the AWA has a little sense to it by treating each crime differently the states do not have to adopt that same outlook. I was also told early on (by other RSO advocates) that the AWA was not desirable because it categorizes by crime and not by individual circumstances. I understand that also but at this point there are an awful lot of people in the state of FL that the tiered system would benefit. It would also force the state of FL to clean up the registry which is way past due.
I have no doubt that FAC has looked into this several times and I always trust they have our best interest at heart. Unfortunately baby steps are the only way we are going to ever get relief. I also think that when there is a change at the helm of the state of FL we might see different progress….
This is all well and fine, but what will happen to all the tier 3 people who have completed there sentences. I feel like any tiered system will single out one group, i.e. “the worst of the worst”, and leave them behind. I realize it was the “contact victim” perpetrators that started all of this mess, but not all tier 3 people who have gone through counseling continue to reactivate.
FAC gets my donation every month. It’s an investment well worth the expenditure.
Finally a tinge of common sense! When will Florida consider such a ‘brilliant idea’? It doesn’t take a ‘rocket scientist’ to see that Florida creates many of its own problems.
Lets all chip in and pressure FAC to lobby for a tiered registry modeled after the California bill in Florida. There are roughly 68K RSO in the state of Florida… Let say half of them can contribute at least 5 bucks, that would be a nice chunk of change to get this machine moving. I wonder how many RSO actually know about FAC. Is there a place somewhere where we could get statistics?