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| Group scrutinizes Va. sex offender registry |
| By Daily Press |
| Published: 06/13/2005 |
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Virginia sex offenders could face tougher sentences in court, surprise visits at home and a satellite system that tracks them everywhere else under proposals being considered by a state task force. The task force, which met for the first time last Tuesday, aims to reinforce the current state sex offender registry, which cannot account for scores of offenders. A check last month showed 113 registered offenders with a jail address who were not in a local jail. "They're not in any incarcerated population, and we don't know where they are," said Kim Hamilton, executive director of the Crime Commission, which formed the task force. The same check found 128 offenders with a state Department of Corrections address who were not in the state prison system. Whether it is moving from prison to society, from one state to the next or simply failing to re-register offenders, the state is falling short, the task force heard. Sen. Ken Stolle of Virginia Beach, a former police officer who is influential on public safety legislation, said real progress comes with a price. "This is not going to be cheap," he said. "This is going to cost us money." The task force will meet several times before making its recommendation to the full Crime Commission. The 2006 General Assembly will take it from there. One of the potential big-ticket items is greater reliance on GPS, or global positioning systems, which allow the state to track an offender's movements, either periodically or in real time. The state has a pilot program now. Stolle said hundreds or thousands of defenders could potentially be tracked in this way. He would like the General Assembly to develop criteria so the worst sexual predators who are likely to break the law again could be "tagged for life" by an ankle bracelet linked to a GPS system. "I think if somebody commits certain serious and violent sexual offenses, because of the recidivism rate they have, I think they have forfeited the public trust for life," he said. Numbers on the sex offender registry change constantly, but as of May 20, Virginia had 6,525 registered sex offenders living in the state. That does not include offenders in the prison system, in a hospital or living out of state, which pushes the grand total to more than 13,000. |
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