To ask for modifications in Adam’s law to render it less strict is a politically difficult request. Even in the face of compelling evidence that the federal law needs to be amended if all states are to comply, Congress may be reluctant to make changes. “It’s a political argument, and nobody wants to be seen as soft on sex offenders,” says Frederick. “The parents of these children come to committee hearings and share their stories, and it’s very difficult to look those parents in the eye and say we need to have flexibility for registering offenders.”
Costs and benefits
In the absence of changes to Adam’s law, however, some states will argue that complying with it is simply not worth the costs. Even though they lose 10 percent of their justice assistance money, that is usually less than they would end up paying for compliance. Ohio, which was the first state to become compliant in 2007, had within two years spent about $10 million just defending itself against lawsuits from offenders sentenced to the registry, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. In contrast, Ohio would have lost only about $2 million for non-compliance during the same period.
These calculations may be the main reason why other large and budget-challenged states such as Texas, California, and New York have not taken steps to comply. A Texas Senate study conducted in 2010 found that implementing the act in that state would cost about $39 million, in comparison to a loss in federal grants of $1.4 million per year. Texas legislators have also argued that the state’s current sex offender system, which was handling 66,587 registered sex offenders as of June 2011, is already backed up and that imposing another layer of requirements would only add to the strain of struggling law enforcement agencies.
“The money that states will lose will be far less than they’ll have to pay for coming into compliance,” says Amanda Peterutti, associate director of the Justice Policy Institute, “and states are looking at those costs and saying ‘no way.’ ”
Nebraska, which became compliant with the Adam Walsh Act in 2009, is now having second thoughts. Before compliance, Nebraska already maintained a three-tiered classification system for its more than 3,000 sex offenders, based on psychological evaluations and projected risks of re-offending. The names of those in the lowest tier of offenders were kept on an internal list, the second tier list was distributed to schools and other children’s centers, and the third, the list of most dangerous offenders, was made public. But when the state complied with the Adam Walsh Act, the previous tier system was abolished and all sex offenders were placed on a public list, no matter the severity of their crime or their risk of re-offending.
“In retrospect, we question whether we are really protecting people with the high number of people out there who aren’t truly a risk,” Nebraska state Senator Amanda McGill said at an October hearing. Nebraska’s legislature will likely consider a bill in the 2012 session to authorize a study of the effects of the law in the state.
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Contact Maggie Clark at maclark@pewtrusts.org
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