July 19, 2006

Dear Fellow Nebraskans:

In recent day, many of the bills passed during this year’s legislative session took effect. Among them was a bill designed to better protect Nebraska families and communities from sexual predators.

Over the course of the last year, one issue emerged as a priority in the ongoing effort to improve public safety in our state, and that was the need to update and revise our state statutes relating to sexual offenders. This law is an important tool in the effort to protect Nebraskans from the assault and violence of sexual predators.

This effort was an area where leadership at the state level could make a difference, and the resulting legislation was a cooperative effort between my office, Attorney General Jon Bruning and Sen. Pat Bourne of Omaha, the outgoing chairman of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee and sponsor of LB 1199.

Working together, we developed a proposal that is more than just a quick-fix to dealing with sex offenders. Other states have tried to address this issue by instituting residency restrictions for sex offenders rather than deal with the real challenges of providing effective management of offenders upon their release from prison.

Sex offender registries emerged as a way to prevent sexual predators from acting in secret. The idea that knowledge can be power is the reason for registries, because they enable citizens to know the whereabouts of these criminals. Yet in many cases the result of overly broad residency restrictions is that offenders go underground by failing to notify law enforcement authorities when they move.

Certainly we needed more effective ways to manage sex offenders, but I don’t believe that broadly defined residency restrictions met that criteria. Here in Nebraska, we’ve opted for methods we know work: longer sentences for the most violent offenders, treatment for those who can be rehabilitated, increased monitoring and greater use of the civil commitment process for those considered at greatest risk to re-offend.

From the beginning, our aim was to design a comprehensive bill that would update the statutes dealing with sexual assaults involving children. This law is a realistic approach that equips state and local law enforcement, prosecutors and judges with tools to use against the criminals who prey on our most vulnerable citizens.

The law creates a separate class of crimes for those who assault children. It strengthens penalties for both first-time and repeat offenders, and creates a 15 year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone convicted of first-degree sexual assault of a child. Subsequent convictions are now punishable by 25 years to life in prison.

It also creates a civil commitment procedure for repeat offenders and those at greater risk to re-offend by keeping them safely away from citizens, and provides the Attorney General’s Office and county attorneys with the discretion to pursue civil commitments where warranted.

Finally, the law establishes common-sense guidelines for locally administered and narrowly defined residency restrictions that limit high-risk sex offenders from living within 500 feet of schools and day care facilities, while also strengthening the penalties for offenders failing to maintain registration with Nebraska’s sex offender registry.

We expect this law to help keep our residents safer by providing tougher penalties, expanding the supervision of sex offenders, and helping to facilitate better communication between law enforcement officers and corrections officials.

I have great respect and admiration for the work of all those involved in protecting Nebraska’s communities, and my hope is that this bill provides the additional tools and resources needed to better protect Nebraska residents and their families.