BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2208
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Date of Hearing: May 12, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 2208 (Torres) - As Amended: April 27, 2010
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
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
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 know 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.)
Moderate ongoing nonreimbursable 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,
including about 400 so-called high-risk sex offenders.)
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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 on-line."
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, 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
as a condition of parole, there may need to be a factual
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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 Facebook, "Protecting the people that
use our service, especially many teenagers, has always been a
top priority for Facebook. That is why we have consistently
supported bills that criminalize usage of social networking
sites by RSOs (registered sex offenders)."
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
proposal wastes money and endangers the public. Evidence based
research recognized by the California Sex Offender Management
Board has shown that the re-integration of sex offenders into
the community is crucial to prevent re-offense. That means
that sex offenders 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
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public. Currently, many people find jobs through social
network sites, i.e. Craig's List. This is even more likely to
be true in the future. To deny sex offenders the opportunity
to find employment is short-sighted, bad public policy and
vindictive."
7)Related Legislation .
a) AB 1850 (Galgiani), also before the committee today,
would require as conditions of probation or parole for
registered sex offenders whose victims were under the age
of 18, or who have been deemed to pose a high risk to the
public for committing sex crimes, that the offender be
prohibited from using the Internet to access pornography,
access a social networking site, or communicate with others
for the purpose of promoting sexual relations with minors.
b) SB 1204 (Runner), pending in Senate Appropriations,
would require sex offender registrants to inform law
enforcement of all online addresses, e-mail addresses, and
instant messaging user names.
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081