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2006 SESSION

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HB 984 Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry; penalties.

Introduced by: Beverly J. Sherwood | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS PASSED: (all summaries)

Sex Offender and Crimes Against Minors Registry; penalties. Makes numerous changes to Registry provisions.  First offense child pornography possession and burglary with the intent to commit certain felony sex offenses will be new Registry offenses if committed after July 1, 2006.  Criminal homicide in conjunction with child abuse will be a registrable offense.  The sex offender website will include persons convicted of all registrable sex offenses not just persons convicted of violent sex offenses as under current law.  The bill modifies the registration of a person convicted of murdering a child; registration will be required if the victim is under 15 years of age and if the minor victim is 15 or older and the murder is related to a registrable offense.  Persons convicted in a foreign country will be required to register.  Offenders will have three days to register or reregister after an address change rather than 10 and have to reregister for any employment change.  Sex offenders moving into the Commonwealth will have three days to register instead of 10, as will nonresident visitors, workers and college students who are subject to registration requirements.

The State Police, or the Department of Corrections if a person is under Department of Corrections control or on community supervision, will be required to physically verify or cause to be physically verified registration information within the first 30 days of the initial registration or change of address and semi-annually each year thereafter. 

Persons who have to register for murder of a minor will be required to reregister every 90 days, the same as a violent sex offender.  In addition, when a sex offender is convicted of failing to register, he will be required to reregister more frequently (violent sex offenders monthly instead of every 90 days and sex offenders 180 days instead of 12 months). The duration of registration for sex offenders who have been convicted of failing to register is extended as they will no longer be permitted to get off of the registry in 10 years from the date of registration, but instead the requirement will be 10 years from the date of their last conviction for failing to register.  In addition, murder of a minor will require lifetime registration.

Sex offenders convicted of failing to register will no longer be permitted to petition for relief for three years from the date of registration, but can petition five years from the date of their last conviction for failure to register.

The bill makes a second or subsequent conviction for failing to register as a sex offender a Class 6 felony and requires GPS monitoring and makes a second or subsequent conviction of failing to register as a violent sex offender or murderer a Class 5 felony and requires mandatory GPS monitoring. 

Procedures to be used by correctional institutions and juvenile facilities to obtain registration information from sex offenders under their custody are made more comprehensive, and faster timelines for transmission of information to the State Police are added.  An offender will be required to submit to having a DNA sample taken (if not already taken) and to being photographed by a law-enforcement agency every two years.

Failure to register is added to the offenses for which conviction bars loitering within 100 feet of a school.  Persons convicted of such offenses after July 1, 2006, will also be prohibited from loitering within 100 feet of a child day program. Persons convicted of certain sex offenses will be prohibited from working or volunteering on the grounds of a school or day care center and will be prohibited from residing within 500 feet of a school or day care center.

Local school boards are required to ensure that schools within the division are registered to receive electronic notice of sex offenders within that school division and to develop and implement policies to provide information to parents regarding registration of sex offenders and the availability of information on the Registry, and are required to develop protocols governing the release of children to persons who are not their parent.  The Virginia Council for Private Education is required to provide the State Police with the location of and e-mail address for every accredited private school in the Commonwealth.  Public and private two- and four-year institutions of higher education are required to electronically transmit information about applicants accepted for enrollment at each institution to the State Police for comparison with the Virginia Criminal Information Network and National Crime Information Center Convicted Sexual Offender Registry.  The Department of Motor Vehicles is required to electronically transmit application information and change of address information for the same purpose.  The bill makes it a Class 4 felony to provide false information to obtain a driver's license with the intent to use it as proof of residency for sex offender registration purposes.

The bill also exempts the provisions of the Registry from the Freedom of Information Act and the Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practice Act and the Virginia Information Technologies Agency.  The Department of Criminal Justice Services is required to advise and initiate training standards for criminal justice agencies and state, local and regional employees who work with the Registry.


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