more sex offender legislation

Alabama’s legislature passed a slightly less-strict sex offender law yesterday. What did they leave out? The castration requirement [previous commentary]. Prof. Berman also reports a Federal Sex Offender bill, which is slated for full committee mark-up in the House. The bill – Children’s Safety Act of 2005 (H.R. 3132), combines various different sex offender bills into one. It has pretty standard provisions, including lifetime registration for felony sex offenders, a national internet database and grant-related incentives. Thankfully, there is an exception for minors having sex with other minors in a 4 year age range.

[The Children's Safety Act of 2005] collects numerous previously proposed bills targeting sex offenders under a single proposal.  Among them is a bill introduced earlier this year and co-sponsored by Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn., dubbed "Dru’s Law" in honor of Sjodin, a 22-year-old Minnesota woman who was abducted, raped and murdered in Grand Forks, N.D. in November 2003. Dru’s Law would create a national database of registered sex offenders that would be searchable via the Internet by the general public and would ease the transfer of sex offender records across state lines.

In addition to the Dru’s Law provisions, the bill would broaden the legal definition of "sex offender" to include anyone guilty of a felony or misdemeanor sex offense, increase the level of monitoring sex offenders receive after their release, and increase mandatory minimum sentences for sex crimes against children.

The bill can be accessed here and a .pdf version is here. Elsewhere, South Dakota’s Attorney General is also pushing for reform in their sex offender laws, seeking tougher legislation, including making it a crime to view child pornography. Hopefully there will be an exception for unintentional viewing/download.

I still haven’t had the time to re-read buck in the context of skinner, but for some reason – wishful thinking? – my gut tells me that castration would still be unconstitutional.