Today Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) revived a proposal that would end lifetime listing of many sex offenders on a public registry in California.
Wiener took a bill he wrote that would have extended the hours of bars in the state, took out its old language, and added the proposal to alter the sex offender registry program.
The bill, SB 384, would require the names of people who committed lower-level nonviolent sex crimes, or people who are judged to be at low risk to reoffend to have their names taken off the registry after 10-20 years.
Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey supports the measure because of the concern that the registry has become too big, with more than 105,000 names on it. The argument is that criminal justice workers are spending too much time on paperwork for people who aren't likely to commit new offenses.
“Our current sex offender registration system is broken — it burdens our law enforcement with unnecessary work tracking and monitoring low-level offenders with little to no risk of repeat offense when these officers should be out monitoring high-risk offenders."
The Assembly Appropriations Committee shelved the first version of the bill because an analysis by legislative staff said it would involve “significant ongoing cost in the tens of millions of dollars" for technology costs.
Wiener's new bill won't have to go through the Appropriations Committee and will go to the Assembly next week for a full vote.