BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 57
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 17, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 57 (Runner) - As Amended: April 12, 2011
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 4-1
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
Yes Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires registered sex offenders to provide law
enforcement all of their online names and addresses, e-mail
addresses, and instant messaging user names for all social
networking Web site accounts at the time of original
registration, and within 30 days of creating a new account, name
or address.
Failure to so comply would be a misdemeanor.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Potentially state-reimbursable local law enforcement costs,
likely in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars, for
increased duties related to sex offender registration -
collecting and updating the online, e-mail, and instant
messaging addresses of about 100,000 registered sex offenders.
Though this cost has not been keyed as a reimbursable state
mandate by Legislative Counsel, the sheer number of offenders
and information may cause a local law enforcement agency to
file a test claim with the Commission on State Mandates.
2)Unknown, likely minor annual non-state reimbursable local law
enforcement and incarceration costs as a result of expanding
sex offender registration requirements, violation of which is
a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in county jail.
These costs would be offset to a degree by increased fine
revenue.
3)Unknown, potentially moderate costs in excess of $150,000, to
the extent three or four registered felony sex offenders who
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fail to report online addresses and names are charged with
felony failure to comply with sex offender registration
requirements, pursuant to Penal Code 290.018. While this bill
"notwithstands" 290.018, it is not clear that these offenders
could not also be charged with a felony.
Moreover, by adding additional registration requirements,
failure to comply could result in a second or third strike,
potentially significantly increasing state prison costs.
4)Unknown, potentially moderate costs in excess of $150,000, to
the extent three or four registered sex offenders who fail to
report online addresses and names are convicted of a
misdemeanor, and as a result of the probation, are sent to
state prison.
5)Unknown moderate costs, potentially in the range of $150,000,
to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
(CDCR) to the extent additional parole agent training and
monitoring is required.
6)No direct costs to DOJ, as the bill only authorizes local law
enforcement to share the online address information with DOJ.
To the extent, however, the existence and availability of this
information encourages DOJ to pursue such information sharing,
DOJ would require staff and software to store and analyze the
information. These costs, while unknown, would likely be in
the range of several hundred thousand dollars.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author contends social networking sites and
e-mail "create a virtual shopping mall for sex offenders on
the prowl" and that requiring convicted offenders to register
online addresses provides law enforcement a tool to employ
against predators who attempt to misuse the Internet to find
potential victims.
2)Support. A list of local law enforcement entities supports
this proposal.
3)Concerns regarding efficacy and fiscal efficiency . There is
nothing that prevents a registered sex offender from simply
changing an e-mail address. Nor is there any reason to assume
that a potential offender, intent on using an Internet site
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for conversing or meeting potential victims, would register
the e-mail address used for this purpose. Assuming a
registrant changes e-mail addresses occasionally, or uses
different e-mail addresses for different purposes, all of the
e-mail addresses, and all of the changes, must be reported to
the registering law enforcement agency. Do local governments
have the personnel and capacity to obtain, process, and
potentially transmit all of this data? Given the ease with
which a person may change an e-mail address, given that many
registrants have been crime-free for years, given that the
crimes of many sex offenders had nothing to do with children,
given California's rare lifetime sex offender registration,
and considering the oft-stated estimate that 90% of child
abuse victims know the perpetrator, is this bill an efficient
use of limited law enforcement resources?
4)Opposition . According to the ACLU and California Public
Defenders Association, this bill is an inefficient and
ineffective use of law enforcement resources.
5)In 1996, California enacted "Megan's Law," allowing the public
to access an address list of registered sex offenders. Before
2003, the public could only obtain the information on the
Megan's Law list by calling a 900 number or visiting
designated law enforcement agencies. In 2003, DOJ put the
Megan's Law list of offenders on a public access website with
the offender's address, photo and list of offenses. For some
offenders with less serious offenses, only the ZIP code is
listed. Today anyone can peruse the website and see where
registered sex offenders are living in the community.
6)Related 2011 Legislation.
a) AB 755 (Galgiani) requires every registered sex offender
to inform the law enforcement agency with which he or she
last registered of all Internet identifiers or service
providers. AB 755 failed passage in Assembly Public Safety.
b) AB 543 (Torres) makes it a misdemeanor for a registered
sex offender to use any Internet social networking Web
site, as specified. AB 543 was held on this committee's
Suspense File.
c) AB 653 (Galgiani) requires a person required to register
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as a sex offender to report his or her Internet accounts
and Internet identifiers to local law enforcement. AB 653
was not heard by Assembly Public Safety.
7)Previous Legislation .
a) SB 1204 (Runner), 2010, was similar to SB 57 and was
held on this committee's Suspense File.
b) AB 1850 (Galgiani), 2010, required a person required to
register as a sex offender to register Internet accounts
and identifiers. AB 1850 was held on this committee's
Suspense File.
c) AB 2208 (Torres), 2010, prohibited specified sex
offenders from accessing an Internet social networking Web
site. AB 2208 was held on this committee's Suspense File.
d) AB 179 (Portantino), 2009, required registered sex
offenders to report all e-mail addresses and IM identities
at the time of registration. AB 179 was significantly
narrowed in this committee and ultimately amended into a
tax bill.
e) AB 841 (Portantino), 2007-08, required registered sex
offenders to provide all e-mail addresses and IM addresses
to local law enforcement. AB 841 was significantly narrowed
in this committee and ultimately amended into a health care
bill.
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081