BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 543
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Date of Hearing: April 13, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 543 (Torres) - As Amended: March 31, 2011
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 7-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months
in county jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000, for a registered
sex offender on parole or probation, whose victim was under the
age of 18, or who used the Internet in the commission of the
crime, to access an Internet social networking site.
This bill also requires the informational statement registered
sex offenders must sign to include a notice regarding the social
networking site prohibition, if applicable.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)One-time software and programming costs, in the range of
$170,000, to the Department of Justice to change the sex
offender registration form. (DOJ is currently finishing its
redesign of the Violent Crime Information Network - VICN,
which will now be known as the California Sex and Arson
Registry - CSAR. Any proposed programming changes at this
point may be problematic until CSAR is fully operational in
2012.)
2)Minor ongoing non-state-reimbursable local law enforcement and
incarceration costs to the extent specified registered sex
offenders are convicted of accessing social networking sites.
(There are currently about 2,650 high risk sex offenders on
state parole and about 160 on probation. Neither the CA
Department of Corrections (CDCR) nor probation tracks the age of
the victim. About 1,000 sex offenders are paroled monthly,
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including about 400 so-called high-risk sex offenders.)
COMMENTS
1)Rationale. The author contends this bill will provide
additional protection from known sex offenders. "As the
Internet becomes today's playground, social networking
websites are increasingly being utilized by children and
youth. There must be clear restrictions on sex offenders'
access to these websites to protect our children online."
2)Questionable Efficacy . While it is common practice for
probation officers and parole agents to check a sex offender's
computer for inappropriate use, these officers do not
generally have the in-depth computer skills necessary to
detect inappropriate usage. Moreover, offenders can simply use
a computer at a different location and use a number of user
profiles.
3)Overly Broad Nexus ? Conditions of parole can only be imposed
if they have a nexus to the offender's criminal history. The
justification must be present for the condition to be valid.
If the condition is overly broad, or applied to a class in an
overly broad fashion, the Board of Parole Hearings will
dismiss the charge and order the condition removed and/or the
condition will be challenged in court.
This bill does not appear to establish a clear nexus between
an individual offender and the proposed ban on all social
networking sites, which are not used only by minors. The
author may wish to consider drawing a more specific nexus, by
limiting the ban to social networking sites commonly used by
minors, for example.
4)California Sex Offender Management Board (CSOMB)
Recommendations . On May 1, 2010 CSOMB released a report that
underscores issues addressed by this bill and made two
relevant recommendations:
a) Parole conditions should be narrowly drawn and relate to
the conviction offense. CASOMB stated, "The parole
restriction must either have a relationship to the crime of
which the offender was convicted, or be related to that
offender to deter future criminality.
"In order to ban belonging to a social networking site
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as a condition of parole, there may need to be a factual
nexus to the offense or offender, such as a record of
seeking victims through newspaper or Internet ads, or
through social networking or dating web sites.
b) Parole needs to develop guidelines for checking parolees
banned from Internet use. According to CASOM, "When a ban
on Internet use is properly imposed as a parole condition,
such as communicating with minors over social networking or
other Internet web sites, the issue becomes how to enforce
the condition?. it should be understood that there are so
many social networking sites of various types that it may
be virtually impossible to enforce such conditions,
especially when the parolee uses a computer not at his or
her own home, or has a common name which makes searching
other databases impractical."
5)Support. According to the Child Abuse Prevention Center, "
Millions of California children who use the internet everyday
are at risk from sexual predators. The internet has provided
an alternative avenue for predators to victimize unsuspecting
youth; child predators, in particular, are moving from the
playground to the web in their search for unsuspecting
children. In this regard, AB 543 provides assistance in
limiting the ability for predators to victimize our children
via highly popular social networking channels."
6)Opponents contend this bill overstates the dangers of social
networking and underestimates the fact that most sex crimes
are committed by friends or relatives. A related legislative
memo from the New York ACLU states, "As for children under the
age of twelve who are the victims of child abuse, the
perpetrator in more than 90 percent of such crimes is a family
member or a known friend of the family. Kidnapping or sexual
abuse of a child by a stranger is an extremely rare
occurrence. These findings and observations are consistent
with the results of on-line sting operations, including sweeps
of networking sites. Aggressive policing of the internet has
uncovered few instances of registered offenders engaged in
criminal conduct."
According to the CA Public Defenders Association, "This
proposed legislation is unnecessary, wastes money and
endangers the public. Evidence based research recognized by
the California Sex Offender Management Board shows that
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reintegration of sex offenders into the community reduces the
risk of re-offense. That means that 290 registrants need jobs
and housing in order to maintain stability and rebuild their
lives. If sex offenders are able to find gainful employment
and appropriate housing, they are less likely to re-offend,
thus less likely to endanger the public.
"Currently, many people finds jobs through social network
websites; i.e., Craig's List, Facebook or Twitter. Indeed,
facilitating job searches is an advertised focus of social
networking sites. Many companies have Facebook accounts and
encourage users to follow their business on Facebook. This is
even more likely to be true in the future. To deny 290
registrants an opportunity to find employment is short sighted
and bad public policy.
"Further, this legislation is unnecessary as existing law
already authorizes the terms and conditions of probation or
parole to be tailored to achieve legitimate purposes of
rehabilitating a defendant to avoid future criminality. If the
particulars of the commitment offense make prohibition again
internet access appropriate under the circumstances, the
mechanism presently exists not only impose such a condition
but to enforce compliance through a violation of probation or
parole."
7)Related Legislation .
a) AB 2208 (Torres), 2010, was virtually identical to this
bill and was held on this committee's Suspense File.
b) AB 1850 (Galgiani), 2010, would have prohibited a
registered sex offender on probation or parole from using
the Internet under certain circumstances. AB 1850 was held
on this committee's Suspense File.
c) AB 653 (Galgiani), 2011, pending in Assembly Public
Safety, requires a registered sex offender to report his
or her Internet accounts and Internet identifiers to local
law enforcement, including e-mail addresses and
designations used for the purposes of chatting, instant
messaging, social networking, or other similar Internet
communication.
AB 543
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Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081