SENATE BILL REPORT

                  EHB 2424

              As Reported By Senate Committee On:

        Human Services & Corrections, February 24, 2000

Title:  An act relating to compliance with federal standards for monitoring sex offenders.

Brief Description:  Changing provisions to comply with federal standards for monitoring sex offenders.

Sponsors:  Representatives Ballasiotes and O'Brien; by request of Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development and Department of Corrections.

Brief History:

Committee Activity:  Human Services & Corrections:  2/24/2000 [DPA].

SENATE COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES & CORRECTIONS

Majority Report:  Do pass as amended.

  Signed by Senators Hargrove, Chair; Costa, Vice Chair; Franklin, Kohl-Welles, Long, Sheahan, Stevens and Zarelli.

Staff:  Fara Daun (786-7459)

Background:  Federal law places minimum requirements on sex offender registration programs.  Ten percent of state Byrne Grant funding for law enforcement programs is contingent on compliance with the federal requirements.  The federal government has notified Washington that the state is not in compliance in some areas of our registration law.

Summary of Amended Bill:  The chief law enforcement officer in each jurisdiction is required to verify the addresses of sexually violent predators who are not in full confinement every ninety days.  The courts and the jail administrator or Department of Corrections who has custody of the sex offender must notify offenders who are required to register that he or she must register in the new state within 10 days if he or she moves to a new state or works, carries on a vocation, or goes to school in a state other than the state of residence.

After the effective date of the act, sex offenders who have been determined to be sexually violent predators or who commit class A sex offenses with forcible compulsion are required to register for life and the court may not relieve them of the duty to register.  Upon a petition, the court may exempt them from community notification provisions to which they may be subject after they have spent 15 years in the community with no offense.

Amended Bill Compared to Original Bill:  The original bill was not considered.

Appropriation:  None.

Fiscal Note:  Available.

Effective Date:  Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For:  This is a needed bill and one technical correction is still needed in the out-of-state registration provisions.

Testimony Against:  None.

Testified:  William Johnston, CTED (pro); Larry Erickson, Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (pro).