I've long felt that economics are the most significant constraint on increasingly restrictive sex offender policy. That's why less states have civil commitment provisions (very costly) than basic registries (relatively cheap). The Justice Policy Institute has just issued a report that indicates that complying with SORNA may be more costly than the loss of federal funds by not complying. From the report:
The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA)1, which mandates a national registry of people convicted of sex offenses and expands the type of offenses for which a person must register, applies to both adults and children. By July 2009, all states must comply with SORNA or risk losing 10 percent of the state’s allocated Byrne Grant money, which states generally use to enforce drug laws and support law enforcement.
In the last two years, some states have extensively analyzed the financial costs of complying with SORNA. These states have found that implementing SORNA in their state is far more costly than the penalties for not being in compliance. JPI’s analysis finds that in all 50 states, the first-year costs of implementing SORNA outweigh the cost of losing 10 percent of the state’s Byrne Grant. Most of the resources available to states would be devoted to the administrative maintenance of the registry and notification, rather than targeting known serious offenders. Registries and notification have not been proven to protect communities from sexual offenses, and may even distract from more effective approaches.
I think if a critical mass of states reject SORNA then the federal statute may fail. However, if states continue to adopt SORNA compliance legislation then political pressure will mount against non-complying states (accentuated by the O'Reilly's of the world who attack states with less restrictive sex offender laws). Still, this report compiling the economic determinations of various states may represent a genuine tipping point against SORNA compliance.
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