Proposed Juvenile Sex Offender Registry Now Targets “High Risk”

A controversial bill to create a registry for violent juvenile sex offenders was approved by the Judiciary Committee in the Tennessee House of Representatives Tuesday. The measure now targets juvenile offenders considered “high risk.”

The proposal, by Hendersonville Republican Debra Maggart, creates a registry that parallels a similar public listing for adult sex offenders. The legislation was amended to publish only the names of juveniles who are considered high-risk by mental health treatment professionals.

Maggart says the bill is better with the changes.

“We are distilling down… we are just trying to find out if we can put the most violent juvenile sex offenders – we just want them, we don’t want the ones the mental health people believe can be rehabilitated. We just … want the ones that are a menace to society.”

Maggart says mental health workers who originally opposed the bill helped craft the amendment. Under the new language, a juvenile who meets all the treatment requirements and is considered at low risk to re-offend can apply to be taken off the public list.

If the bill, as now worded, meets the requirements of the federal “Adam Walsh” act, named after a juvenile victim, the state may qualify for about $5 million it would otherwise have forfeited.

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The bill is HB 2789 Maggart/SB 2725 Black.

Dr. Tara Khun of Vanderbilt University assured lawmakers that the decision of who is high-risk, who is low-risk, can be made reliably.

“We’re really good at telling you who the low risk kids are and we’re really good at telling you may be who the high risk kids are but those kids who are in that moderate-high, low-high risk, those are the ones that are more difficult to capture, and so there’s an error rate in the way the assessment is done.”

Maggart credited the mental health workers for help in making the bill more palatable.

“With the help of the mental health professionals – they helped me figure out a way to get as few kids on there, because I know people want kids to have another chance.”

Previous coverage of this issue:

Capitol Hill Conversation – Juvenile Sex Offender Registry
Monday, March 15th, 2010

Leila Schoepke contributed to this report.

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