08/22/2011
By Brian Bowling
Pennsylvania missed a federal deadline for revamping its sex offender registration laws and risks becoming a "safe haven" for dangerous criminals, a state lawmaker warns.
The Adam Walsh Act, enacted in 2006, mandated a more comprehensive, nationwide system to track sex offenders. It gave states five years to adjust their laws to conform with new guidelines. Fourteen states made the July deadline.
Soon after Gov. Tom Corbett took office in January, he directed his staff to work on the changes needed to bring state law in line with the Adam Walsh Act, said spokesman Kevin Harley.
"It's the Corbett administration's intention to bring Pennsylvania into compliance," he said.
- I think you mean it's his intention on ignoring his oath of office, and spending millions of dollars in order to get a couple hundred thousand, wasting money as most politicians do. And people wonder why we are broke?
The Adam Walsh Act, named for a Florida boy kidnapped and killed in 1981, is stricter than the state's Megan's Law in that it requires sex offenders to register in person and get their pictures taken more frequently so police know where they're living and what they look like, said state Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless. She sponsored several bills to bring the state into compliance over the past five years.
If other states pass the laws and Pennsylvania does not, violent sexual offenders would move here to avoid the tougher laws, Orie said.
"These predators look at you as a safe haven," she said.
- Hey Ms. Orie, not all sex offenders are predators, which you seem to think. That is like calling all blacks gang members, because some are, or all whites are racist, because some are.
Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., said anecdotal evidence from federal marshals responsible for tracking down sex offenders who fail to maintain their registration supports Orie's argument.
"The most serious offenders were taking advantage of these differences (in state laws) and moving to where they were least likely to be identified," he said. Allen declined to name which states were attracting the sex offenders.
- Can you prove that, or are you just making crap up?& You expect people to just take your word for it? I take no ones word for it, except people who have proven they can be trusted, and of course he did not name the states, because he's probably making it up!
The center estimates about 100,000 of the 780,000 convicted sex offenders in the nation have either failed to register or moved without updating their information.
- Again with the goldilock number of 100,000 missing, which has been shown to be a made up number.
Although the state missed a July 27 deadline, the Corbett administration expects that when the Legislature returns to Harrisburg in September, it will pass the necessary changes, Harley said. Meanwhile, the state is asking the U.S. Justice Department to waive the penalty for failing to comply -- a 10 percent reduction in the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant.
- So if you missed the deadline, then you should lose the money, period. So you are now asking them to ignore the date, and what they said, and give you the money instead. Yep, corruption runs deep!
The grant is the primary federal funding that state and local governments receive for criminal justice programs, including police, courts and district attorney's offices. The state received $9.2 million from the program this year, according to the Justice Department. Local governments in the state received ad additional $4 million.
The Corbett administration does not have an estimate of how much it would cost to bring the state into compliance, Harley said.
- Of course they don't, they don't want you to know the truth, that they are spending more money to implement the draconian, unconstitutional laws, than if they just ignored it. And you wonder why we are broke? This is like spending a couple thousand dollars on lottery tickets, and then you only win $100. So you actually lost $1,800. Anybody with common sense can tell you that that is why this country is going broke!
To comply with the federal law, Pennsylvania would have to adopt a three-tiered system of classifying sex offenders by how long they would need to register with authorities. The state has two categories: those who have to stay registered for 10 years and those who must stay registered for life. Someone who registers must re-register only when changing addresses.
Other changes include adding juvenile offenders to the registry, expanding the list of crimes considered to be sex offenses and increasing the amount of information offenders have to provide to police.
Several states balked at implementing provisions of the Adam Walsh Act because of its cost. In Texas, the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, after a yearlong study, recommended against compliance because it would cost more than the state would lose in grant money.
Ohio was the first state to comply with the Adam Walsh Act requirements. Amy Borror, spokeswoman for the Ohio Public Defenders Office, testified in a 2009 congressional hearing that complying with the law spawned more than 6,000 lawsuits and increased the workload on sheriff's offices by about 60 percent.
Borror said the number of lawsuits had increased to more than 7,000, and her office estimates that Ohio has spent at least $10 million just on legal costs. The actual costs of administering the act are harder to calculate because they are spread among the sheriff's and district attorney's offices of the state's 88 counties.
- Everybody across this country, if they are faced with these draconian, unconstitutional laws, should file a law suit against their state. Even if you cannot afford a lawyer, the state has to appoint one for you, and if you inundate the system, eventually it will crumble! FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHTS, OR ACCEPT THE LABEL!
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in two decisions that a key part of the Adam Walsh Act -- reclassifying the state's 26,000 convicted sex offenders into three groups -- is unconstitutional. The court determined that the burdens the new law imposes on offenders are so harsh that they amount to additional punishment rather than an administrative requirement comparable to obtaining a driver's license.
"For the Ohio Supreme Court to say that this had crossed the line into punishment was significant," Borror said.
Lisa Hackley, spokeswoman for the Ohio Attorney General's Office, said that although complying with the act cost the state more than it would have lost in federal grant money, the overall benefit goes beyond the dollar figures.
- What? What benefit? This is just borderline insanity!
"For the most part, police prefer for sex offenders to be registered under the Adam Walsh Act," she said.
- So, do corrupt police officers have to registry on an online registry as well? Even those who commit sex crimes, which is growing daily? Also, why not just put all criminals on an online hit-list for vigilantes to take advantage of, or identity thieves?
