After a recent law enforcement operation found dozens of sex offenders were not complying with registry requirements, one state lawmaker is renewing her push for legislation to modernize New York’s sex offender registry, which has gone three decades without changes accounting for evolving technology and changing times.
The bill has existed for roughly a decade. Assemblymember Pam Hunter guided it through the lower chamber this spring, but it did not receive a vote in the state Senate.
“It hasn’t been updated since the 1990s,” said Hunter, a Syracuse Democrat and the Assembly’s speaker pro tempore. “We’re not even telling them what tool they have to create, we’re just saying update it.”
Hunter renewed her push after growing angry upon learning the results of Operation Orange, a partnership involving Syracuse police and the U.S. Marshals Service. The operation was supported by child victim advocate John Walsh, whose 6-year-old son, Adam, was abducted and killed in 1981.
The operation found that 85 registered sex offenders were not complying with registry requirements, including two who could not be accounted for but were later apprehended. The city was also able to add updated information to the registry to improve its accuracy within Syracuse.
“Operation Orange delivered meaningful results for our community. By completing the initiative, we have improved reliability of the registry and reinforced the importance of compliance,” Syracuse Police Chief Mark Rusin said at a news conference.
Hunter said she hopes the operation’s results will generate new traction for the bill heading into next session.
“That they found a large percentage of people are not complying with what they are supposed to be doing on the registry, that should give us all pause and concern,” Hunter said.
The legislation would update the risk assessment tool used to determine the likelihood that an individual will reoffend and how people on the registry are classified. Supporters say the current system does not adequately account for internet-related concerns and other modern factors that could affect the likelihood that someone will reoffend.
“We have the dark web now, we have people trolling people on the internet. That was not a thing when this tool was created. We want to make sure we’re capturing all of the ways people can prey on the vulnerable,” Hunter said.
State Sen. Liz Krueger, the bill’s longtime Senate sponsor, was on medical leave for part of this year’s legislative session while recovering from a minor stroke. Krueger said her absence prevented her from working directly with senators who still have concerns about the proposal.
She told Spectrum News 1 that some members of the Senate are worried that changing the way sex offenders are classified could produce unintended consequences.
“I don’t think there’s a real controversy with tools that might find that somebody who was a lower-level offender ended up with a higher-level determination, but I think there is a real concern that a tool might translate to someone with a higher-level offense being determined at a lower level,” she said. “If you talk to my colleagues who are struggling with specific examples, they’re looking for laws to fix things to make it safer for their community. People may have concerns: ‘What if?’ But now we’re not doing anything to fix it, and the what-ifs are happening.”
Krueger credited Hunter for getting the longtime bill across the finish line in the Assembly and stressed that advancing the legislation will be one of her priorities when lawmakers return to Albany.
“Health hit, and I had to take some time off, and so I do think there is more opportunity when we come back in January with a new session and new members,” she said. “I’m healthy again, and I will be back in action, and I can ‘lobby my bill’ in the Senate, and at least for me to hear people’s concerns and try to address them specifically.”
Albany political experts told Spectrum News 1 that it is far from unusual for concerns raised by a small number of lawmakers to delay a complicated bill.
“You have one or two members who are very loud and very persuasive in conference,” said Jack O’Donnell, managing partner of O’Donnell & Associates.
Former state Sen. David Carlucci, founder and managing partner of David Carlucci Consulting, said the complexities of criminal justice policy in New York can generate concerns that proposed laws either go too far or do not go far enough. He said it’s the nature of the legislative process that it takes time to address those concerns before legislation can advance.
“That’s something that any advocate has to recognize and deal with. It doesn’t mean it’s not going to pass — it’s just an extra level of consideration,” he said.
Because this is an election year, the legislative process will begin again when lawmakers return for a new session. The bill would need to be reintroduced and passed again by the Assembly before also passing the state Senate.