HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 3751        FILED ON: 2/19/2021

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1718

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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PRESENTED BY:

Kay Khan

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To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General
Court assembled:

The undersigned legislators and/or citizens respectfully petition for the adoption of the accompanying bill:

An Act relative to data collection by the Sex Offender Registry Board.

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PETITION OF:

HOUSE DOCKET, NO. 3751        FILED ON: 2/19/2021

HOUSE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 1718

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the One Hundred and Ninety-Second General Court
(2021-2022)

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An Act relative to data collection by the Sex Offender Registry Board.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1. Notwithstanding and special or general law to the contrary or regulation, the Sex Offender Registry Board shall collect and compile data to assess the agency’s reliability, effectiveness and impact; to evaluate the accuracy of the agency’s classification system; and to allow for the analysis and quantification of individual factors, so that their relevance and the reliability of their ratings can be evaluated. Data collection shall keep track of trends, disparate impact of classifications, and recidivism.

Said board shall submit an annual report no later than October 31, generated from the collected data. Said report shall be filed with the clerks of the senate and house of representatives and be available to the public upon request. The first report shall include data from the previous five fiscal years, broken down by year, after which, the annual report shall include data from only the preceding fiscal year. The initial report may only include global final level decisions, but subsequent reports shall include item and total score information. All data and a description of the methods relied upon in generating said report shall be contained in the report or made available to the public upon request.

The following data shall be reported on an annualized basis:

1.The number of individuals on the registry as of the date of the report, broken down by Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3.

2. The number of individuals finally classified by the Sex Offender Registry Board during the fiscal year as not required to register, finally classified as Level 1, finally classified as Level 2, and finally classified as Level 3. This data shall be broken down for each level by adult males, females and juveniles whose sex offense(s) occurred when under the age of 18 and those who are identified as being served by the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Developmental Services.

3.The number of Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 recommended classifications per fiscal year including the number that were increased in final classification, the number decreased in final classification and number that remained the same, broken down by the number of individuals at each recommended level whose classifications were raised to Level 3, raised to Level 2, lowered to a Level 2, lowered to Level 1, lowered to not required to register and remained the same.

4. The number of cases remanded to the Sex Offender Registry Board from the Superior Court and Appellate Courts, broken down by classification level before remand and classification level after remand to include the number of individuals whose classifications increased to Level 3, increased to Level 2, decreased to Level 2, decreased to Level 1, were not required to register, and remained the same.

5. The number of registrants who sought to reduce their classification levels claiming a diminished risk of re-offense and danger to the public pursuant to 803 CMR 1.31, broken down by classification level before request for reduction and final classification level of those individuals after request for reduction was considered.

6. The number of petitions initiated by the Sex Offender Registry Board for any reason to increase a registrant’s classification level, broken down by classification level before the request to increase and final classification level for those individuals after request to increase became final.

7. The number of petitions initiated by the Sex Offender Registry Board to increase a registrant’s classification level because of a new sex offense arrest or conviction, broken down by arrests and convictions.

8. The number of individuals classified as Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 who were convicted of a new sex offense within five years of the final classification, broken down by classification level.

9. The number of individuals classified as Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 who were convicted of a new sex offense within ten years of the final classification, broken down by classification level.

10. In all subsequent years after the quantification of the factors has been completed—the correlation and Area under the Curves of the total scores and individual item scores with recidivism; the reliabilities of total scores and individual item scores; and a covariation matrix of all items and the total scores.