Editorial: 'Jessica's Law' one year later: Empty promises

Initiative aimed at protecting children is prohibitively expensive, unenforceable
12-3-2007 California:

A little more than a year ago, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 83, popularly known as Jessica's Law. That initiative, aimed at monitoring and controlling sex offenders, now is collapsing under its own excess.

Virtually no local government is enforcing the law because its sweeping provisions are both unenforceable and prohibitively expensive.

The measure requires lifetime monitoring for sex offenders – not just those charged with child sexual abuse and rapists whose victims were adults, but also those convicted of consensual sex with a teenager and even misdemeanor indecent exposure. It also bars offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park.

The legislative analyst predicted the measure would cost tens of millions of dollars initially, jumping to hundreds of millions of dollars within 10 years. After just one year, the costs of Jessica's Law are beginning to mount rapidly.

According to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, there are 5,669 parolees subject to monitoring now. Another 400 to 700 leave prison every month. Each is supposed to be fitted with a global positioning system device, or GPS. According to the department, these devices cost $2,500 apiece if purchased. The state leases them for $8.50 a day.

Once parolees are fitted with a GPS, they must be monitored. State parole officers now monitor 2,746 parolees fitted with GPS devices. (The state doesn't have enough devices for the rest.) Labor and equipment cost $33 a day or $11,616 per offender per year.

Who will pick up the burden of monitoring sex offenders when they leave state parole? The poorly drafted initiative was silent on this point.

Corrections Director James Tilton wants offenders who finish parole to turn in their state-issued global positioning devices and report to local authorities. But sheriffs and city police departments are reluctant to take on these duties. It's easy to see why nobody wants the job. Where will the manpower and money come from?

So for now at least, the law is not being enforced, and there is a real question whether it ever will or even can be. Deputy Mike Jones, who heads the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Sex Offender Task Force, says Jessica's Law is not being enforced in the county. He doubts it ever can be in its current form.

For example, there are no sanctions in the law for sex offenders who fail to keep their GPS anklet devices charged or who remove them after being released from state jurisdiction. If sex offenders travel to other counties or cities or outside of state, which they are free to do, no one knows how they will be tracked.

The arrest of a high-risk offender in Placer County last week shows that GPS monitoring can pay off – in the right circumstances and if the right people are being monitored. But because it overreaches so badly, Jessica's Law fails to deliver what proponents promised and what the public wants – real protection from sexual predators who target children.

State corrections officials predicted the residency restrictions in the law would drive sex offenders underground and make our communities less safe. Now it also turns out that the measure would bankrupt local governments if it is enforced as written. California will be wrestling with this mess for years to come. ..more.. EDITORIAL Sacbee