Cranston Rep. Introduces Comprehensive Sex Offender Bill

For Rep. Peter G. Palumbo, working to enact a comprehensive sex offender registration and notification act (SORNA) is about keeping children safe.

 “As long as there is one sex offender out there that we cannot account for, there is the potential for great harm, the potential for another victim,” Palumbo (D-Dist. 16, Cranston) said.

For Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin, passing SORNA is not only about a more comprehensive law that implements the provisions of the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, it is also about preventing the loss of federal funding. That federal act (named for Adam Walsh, a boy who was abducted from a Florida mall and later found murdered) required Rhode Island to substantially implement its provisions by July, 2011, or lose 10 percent annually in federal Byrne Grant funds, which support state and local law enforcement programs and drug courts. (Although the state is losing 10 percent of the funding, the federal government is allowing that money to be reallocated, but only for use to implement SORNA.)

“It is a priority of the Office of Attorney General, and me personally, to advocate for laws that better protect our community and, more so, laws that better protect our children from child sex offenders,” said Attorney General Kilmartin. “The SORNA legislation will give greater protections for the citizens of Rhode Island and will give law enforcement the information to keep sex offenders accountable.”

Representative Palumbo, in conjunction with the Office of the Attorney General, has again this year introduced legislation that would fully implement SORNA in Rhode Island. The bill, 2013-H 5557, is before the House Committee on Finance.

The act would accomplish the following:

Provide for the registration and notification of those adults adjudicated for a sex offense and those juveniles adjudicated as an adult for a sex offense.

Recodifies Department of Public Safety (State Police) control of the sex offender registry and transfers control of sex offender website from the Parole Board’s Sex Offender Community Notification Unit to the State Police. 

Provides retroactive registration for those adjudicated of sex offenses, but not currently required to register, under the following circumstances: 1) the offender is currently in the criminal justice system and not subject to pre-existing sex offender registration requirements, and 2) the offender is already subject to pre-existing sex offender registration requirements.

Requires offenders to provide the following information for the registry:  name, date of birth, social security number, current digitized photograph, accurate physical description, driver’s license, identification card, passport, immigration documents, residence address, telephone numbers, internet identifiers, vehicle information, employment information, school information, criminal history, fingerprints and DNA.

The act would provide a new mechanism for tiering sex offenders.  Currently, tiers are determined by a risk assessment completed by the Sex Offender Board of Review.  This tier classification can be appealed to Superior Court for reclassification.  The new act would provide for offense-based classification, with the offender’s tier level determined by the severity of the offense.

The act also amends community notification of sex offenders.  Currently, notification is achieved by local police departments and the Parole Board website.  This act would streamline notification by making it web-based and automated, with the Department of Public Service maintaining a notification website with search capabilities and a function that enables the general public to receive e-mail notification when a sex offender commences residence, employment, or school attendance within the state, a specified zip code, or a certain geographic radius.

“Under current law, it is the duty of local law enforcement agency, the police department of a city or town in which the offender resides, to provide notification to another community if the offender moves,” said Representative Palumbo. “This makes for a very disjointed method of notification, and requires local police to spend time on what are essentially clerical matters when they should be spending that time protecting their community. By making one central agency – the State Police – responsible for this process will free up local law enforcement resources and save communities money.”

Representative Palumbo spearheaded Rhode Island’s enactment of Megan’s Law, which requires the state’s parole board and courts to evaluate all sexual offenders leaving prison and determine the risk posed to the community, and also Jessica’s Law, which requires first-degree child molesters and Level 3 sex offenders to wear a global positioning system monitor.

“This is a significant piece of legislation, a comprehensive bill that encompasses a number of issues regarding sex offenders and public information about them. But it is really about just one thing – keeping people, and especially young people, safe from sexual predators,” said Representative Palumbo.

 Co-sponsors of the bill include Rep. John J. DeSimone (D-Dist. 5, Providence), Raymond H. Johnston Jr. (D-Dist. 61, Pawtucket), Rep. John M. Carnevale (D-Dist. 13, Providence, Johnston) and Rep. Donald J. Lally Jr. (D-Dist. 33, Narragansett, South Kingstown).