Maryland lawmakers are set to consider nearly two dozen bills Tuesday that would strengthen laws against sex offenders by lengthening prison terms, improving monitoring requirements and adding more locations to the list where offenders can’t step foot.
Cracking down on sex offenders has been a major thrust of the 2010 session following the murder of 11-year-old Sarah Foxwell, who was abducted by a registered sex offender on the Eastern Shore and found dead on Christmas Day.
State Sen. Bryan W. Simonaire, R-Anne Arundel, said hearings in the Judicial Proceedings Committee are likely to last well into Tuesday evening, with 17 bills on the table and dozens of victims, concerned parents and child advocates planning to rally in Annapolis.
Simonaire said Maryland law is weakest when it comes to sentencing and monitoring convicted offenders.
“We’re releasing sexually violent predators into the community, full well knowing they are likely to strike again,” he said. “We need to keep people in jail longer and off the streets.”
Maryland’s laws aren’t all that bad, said Judicial Proceedings Committee Chairman Brian Frosh, D-Bethesda.
“There are just some places where cleanup would be appropriate,” he said.
“Cleanup” is primarily lacking in post-conviction supervision, he said, throwing his support behind Republican Cecil County Sen. Nancy Jacobs’ bill — co-signed by the entire Senate — that would prohibit convicted offenders from earning “good-behavior” credits that reduce prison terms.
Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. and state Sen. Norman R. Stone, D-Baltimore County, are pushing bills that would improve supervision through lifetime monitoring and GPS tracking for violent offenders. Stone also wants to add playgrounds to the list of places where sex offenders are prohibited to step within 2,000 feet.
Another bill from Jacobs would lengthen prison sentencing for second-degree rape of a minor from five to 20 years.
The use of a weapon is the only separation between first- and second-degree assault, but “when you are an adult preying on a child, your own body is a weapon,” said Stacie Rumenap, president of Stop Child Predators.
Representatives from the Maryland Public Defender’s Office are expected to testify in opposition to a number of thebills.
