HOUSE BILL REPORT
SHB 1147
As Amended by the Senate
Title: An act relating to protecting communities from sex offenders through the establishment of community protection zones.
Brief Description: Protecting communities from sex offenders through the establishment of community protection zones.
Sponsors: By House Committee on Criminal Justice & Corrections (originally sponsored by Representatives Clements, O'Brien, Skinner, Woods, Pearson, Simpson, Lovick, Tom and B. Sullivan).
Brief History:
Criminal Justice & Corrections: 1/28/05, 2/22/05 [DPS].
Floor Activity:
Passed House: 3/3/05, 97-0.
Senate Amended.
Passed Senate: 4/12/05, 46-0.
Brief Summary of Substitute Bill |
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE & CORRECTIONS
Majority Report: The substitute bill be substituted therefor and the substitute bill do pass. Signed by 7 members: Representatives O'Brien, Chair; Darneille, Vice Chair; Pearson, Ranking Minority Member; Ahern, Assistant Ranking Minority Member; Kagi, Kirby and Strow.
Staff: Yvonne Walker (786-7841) and Jim Morishima (786-7191).
Background:
An offender convicted of more than one "two strikes" sex offense will be sentenced for life in
prison without the possibility of parole. Two strikes sex offenses include:
An offender who commits a first "two strikes" sex offense will be sentenced to a "determinate
plus" sentence. Such an offender will receive a minimum term and a maximum term. The
minimum term is generally equal to the offender's standard range sentence. The maximum
term is the statutory maximum term for the crime: life for class A felonies, 10 years for class
B felonies, and five years for class C felonies.
The offender will be evaluated by the Indeterminate Sentence Review Board after the
expiration of his or her minimum term and must be released unless he or she is likelier than
not to commit a predatory sex offense. If the offender is released, he or she will be on
community custody for the remainder of his or her maximum term. The terms for the
community custody must include conditions such as reporting to a community corrections
officer and obtaining residence approval from the Department of Corrections (DOC).
Summary of Substitute Bill:
Community protection zones are established around public and private schools. The zones
have a radius of 880 feet around the schools.
The court must prohibit an offender who is convicted of a first "two strikes" sex offense
against a minor victim from residing in a community protection zone while on community
custody. In addition, the DOC may not approve a residence location for such offenders if the
proposed residence is in a community protection zone.
The DOC must reject a residence location if the proposed residence is within 880 feet of
schools, child care centers, playgrounds, or other grounds or facilities where children of
similar age or circumstance as a previous victim are present who the department determines
may be put at substantial risk of harm by the sex offender's residence at that location.
Law enforcement agencies and the DOC are immune from civil liability for damages from
any discretionary decisions made if they make a good faith effort to comply with the act.
EFFECT OF SENATE AMENDMENT(S):
The amendment clarifies the language so that the 880 feet community protection zones
explicitly relates to the perimeter around "schools" and nothing else.
A provision is added that establishes a Joint Task Force (between the House and the Senate)
on sex offender management. The Task Force must collaborate with the Partnership for
Community Safety and must report to the legislature by December 1, 2005 on the
effectiveness of community protection zones, standardization of sex offender community
notification, applicability of the public disclosure act to sex offender information sharing,
training needs for law enforcement, criminal justice and school personnel related to sex
offender notification and community notification and management strategies; and the impact
and advisability of pre- notification of local government officials related to sex offender
location.
An expiration date is added to the bill and as a result, the entire act expires on July 1, 2006.
Appropriation: None.
Fiscal Note: Available.
Effective Date: The bill takes effect 90 days after adjournment of session in which the bill is passed.
Testimony For: Last year in the Selah area, a level III sex offender moved in next to a
school. This offender would wear very little clothes and would parade around in front of
children. There was a 90 percent chance that the offender would re-offend again.
It took seven months to draft this piece of legislation which establishes protection zones.
This bill only deals with the worst of the worst that have committed egregious crimes against
children. The purpose of this bill is to deal with the general safety of children within a two-block radius of schools. The purpose is not to create an unfunded mandate or a burden on
anyone. It invests the power in the local school boards, since one of the major obligations of
the school district is to provide safety for children that attend their schools.
Washington has no legislation that prohibits a level III sex offender from living near schools.
It is a parent's nightmare to receive a notice that a sex offender is living near a school.
Washington needs a law in place to ensure parents that their children can feel safe walking to
and from their schools without a sex offender living in their direct path to that school. Our
children deserve the chance to grow up safely while they are in our care.
(Concerns) Out of the 18,500 sex offenders registered in this state, less than 16 percent of
them are under the supervision of the DOC. This bill would only impact those offenders
under supervision and would not affect those sex offenders living without supervision as in
the Selah case. The DOC already has the authority to prevent offenders from living within
the close proximity of schools, daycare centers, and other public places.
The bill will not unilaterally protect child victims. Studies have shown that sex offenders
who do reoffend in neighborhoods where schools are located are those offenders that are
traveling to those places and not ones living close to schools. Sex offenders do not re-offend
in their own communities, they actually travel to other communities where they are unknown.
There are several other concerns with this bill. Sex offender notification should be a law
enforcement responsibility and not a school responsibility. Charter schools could
continuously be created and as a result sex offenders could be driven underground or out into
the rural communities. There also are liability issues both with the expansion of the
community protection zones created by schools and the responsibilities of the law
enforcement agencies to notify the community.
The big concern of this bill is that it creates a false sense of security. It is time that we start
thinking about where sex offenders should go and not where they should not be going.
Testimony Against: There are constitutional concerns with living restrictions placed on
offenders that are no longer under the custody of the DOC. The process by which community
protections zones could be expanded is also a concern.
In addition, the bill is based upon crimes and not sex offender levels. A person could be
convicted of a crime but their assigned sex offender level could be much lower. The use of
the term predator is flawed. Most offenders offend against people that they know. Predators
offend against people that they do not know.
The bill is very vague regarding how a community protection zone is actually defined. It can
start off at two blocks and then it may be extended indefinitely. There are no perimeters or
borders for community protection zones. There are many sex offenders that cannot live in
certain areas already because the renter or family member can lose his or her lease. What
ends up happening is that sex offenders will register as a transient with the police station and
then go back and live in these same areas that they were previously prohibited from.
Persons Testifying: (In support) Representative Clements, prime sponsor; Penny Pitman;
Pearl Mandee; Shelly Grahman; and Velma Chidson.
(Concerns) Victoria Roberts, Department of Corrections; Suzanne Brown-McBride,
Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs; James McMahan, Washington
Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs; and Dan Steele, Washington State School
Director's Association.
(Opposed) Michael Kahrs, Washington Defenders Association and Washington Association
of Criminal Defense Lawyers; and Keith Barnes, Pierce County Sheriff's Department.