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New York’s Gov. George
Pataki has announced that he plans to propose additional legislation to
strengthen the state’s Megan’s Law by mandating lifetime registration
for all sex offenders.
Currently, only the
most serious offenders, those designed as sexual predators, sexually
violent offenders, predicate sex offenders and certain Level 3 sex
offenders, are required to remain on the state’s sex offender registry
for life, Pataki said. His proposed new legislation would require
lifetime registry for all sex offenders.
“Sex offenses are
serious crimes and we owe it to New York’s families to provide them with
as much public information as possible about sex offenders who may be
living in their communities”, Pataki said.
Thousands of currently
registered sex offenders are scheduled to be dropped from the public
registry in 2006 because the 1996 Megan’s Law required most offenders to
register for only 10 years. Megan’s Law requires that offenders’ names
be posted on a state web site at
http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us and when sex offenders change
their address, they are required to notify authorities.
There are currently
over 20,000 registered sex offenders in the state with three levels of
sex offenders, Level 3 being deemed to carry the highest risk of
committing another sex crime.
“I have previously
offered comprehensive proposals to bolster Megan’s Law including a
provision to require all sex offenders to be listed on the internet
through our state’s criminal justice website”, Pataki said. “While the
Senate has overwhelmingly supported these proposals, the Assembly
Leadership’s ‘so what’ attitude toward sex offenders has prevented these
critical measures from becoming law”.
The state assembly is
led by Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat. Senate Republicans have
scheduled hearings in May that would lead to legislative proposals in
June before the current legislative session ends.
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