Sex crime law sets up 3-tier system Some convicts would no longer be registered for life

In the first significant change to California’s sex offender registry since 1947, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law that revamps a one-size-fits-all lifetime registry into a three-tiered system that distinguishes between low, middle and high-level offenders.

The new law, SB 384, was signed Friday and goes into effect Jan. 1, 2021. It provides that criminals in the first tier now will have an opportunity to petition for removal from the registry after 10 years, and those in the second tier after20. Third-tier sex crime convicts will stay registered for life. For juvenile offenders, there are 5- and 10-year tiers for petition.

A criminal becomes a tier-three registrant upon conviction of certain crimes, including . acting as a sexually violent predator, committing assault during the commission of a sexcrime or possession of child pornography.

Those convicted of less serious acts become tier two registrants. Tier one is reserved for misdemeanor or non-violent, non-serious sexcrimes.

The new tiers will replace an antiquated, ineffective system and replace it with an evidence-based method to monitor sex crime offenders, said Alameda County District Attorney Nancy E. O’Malley, chair of California’s Sex Offender Management Board, in a statement.

The new system will also take into account the probability of a convict committing another sex crime after applying to be taken off the registry. The author of the bill, Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, noted that California is one of four states — along with Alabama, South Carolina, and Florida — that applied uniform registry requirements without re-offense risk calculations, an approach he called draconian and ineffective.

“With this reform, our law enforcement agencies will be able to better protect people from violent sex offenders rather than wasting resources tracking low-level offenders who pose little or no risk,” the senator said.

When assessing a petition for registry removal, the law now requires judicial review of an convict’s SARATSO score, an acronym for “state authorized risk assessment tools,” used to evaluating sex crime offenders. SARATSO scores assess the nature of the crime, previous criminal acts, and the convict’s background to create a numerical score corresponding to probability of recidivism.

The bill had a broad base of support, which included prosecutors, rape crisis centers, law enforcement, and the ACLU. Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey sponsored the bill, along with the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the California Sex Offender Management Board, and Equality California, an LGBTQ rights organization.

Law enforcement officials said the new law will make it easier to put resources where they’re most needed. By allowing for removal of low risk criminals, the new registry system will allow law enforcement to focus on those with high risk, said Bradley McCartt, Deputy in Charge of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Family Violence Division, in a statement.

“The sex offender registry is meant to be an investigative tool to assist law enforcement in crime solving and prevention of additional sexual assaults,” said McCartt. “The current overly populated system is incapable of serving that purpose.”

Though many other areas of criminal justice have evolved over the past several decades, sex criminal registry requirements have not, said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, and thousands still found themselves on the registry for behavior that would not be prosecuted today.

“It’s a dramatic improvement over lifetime registry for everyone, but there’s still room for improvement,” said Janice Bellucci, executive director of the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws. The law’s definition of child pornography, for example, could include an 18-year-old who had explicit photos of his 17-year-old girlfriend, which would carry lifetime registration requirements, she said.

According to her preliminary calculations, more than half of the people currently on the registry may be eligible to petition for removal, Bellucci said.

“This gives hope to people currently on the registry, which serves society better,” Bellucci said. “When people have hope, they are more likely to comply with the law.”