An Overview of One State's Registry

The Georgia Sex Offender Registry

by Kelly R Piercy, Georgians For Reform, an RSOL Affiliate

Data Source: Georgia Bureau of Investigation: online Sex Offender Registry

The Georgia Statutes provide for registration and residency restriction within the state. The law is a bit different from those of other states in that they make no provision for the underlying offense in determining if a person is to be on a public registry or under various residency restrictions [consider the Oregon or Canadian schemes for example.] If a person is convicted of an offense under Chapter 16 of the statute, then they must register.

Registration in Georgia is for life, though there is a provision in the statute to petition the court for removal from the registry after ten years have elapsed from release from incarceration, parole, probation and/or supervised release. A record of a person being removed from the registry by petition to the courts has not been found.

There has been a unique finding of the courts for a person entering the state who was required to register in another state not having to register in Georgia. The circumstance is that the individual was convicted of using his position (Clergy-Congregant) to coerce sexual favors. There being no similar law in Georgia making this an offense, the courts found that the clergyman is not required to register in Georgia. However, virtually all other offenses under another states jurisdiction, federal jurisdiction, military jurisdiction, or the jurisdiction of the Territories have proved to require registration.

Thus, registration in Georgia is for life and the conditions of registration and residency restriction are the same for a no contact/no victim offense as they are for the rape and murder of a child. The only differentiation made in the Georgia Registry is in the information published on the public registry.

The Birthday Greeting sent to every person on the Georgia Sexually Violent Offender Registry

see full sized image

Note that the letter sent to every person on the registry identifies the Registry as the Georgia Sexually Violent Offender Registry (highlighting added) - regardless of what the underlying offense may be.

These letters are sent by U.S. Mail, Registered, Return Receipt at a cost of $5.54 each. Considering only the cost of Postage, the cost of sending these letters to 17,707 persons on the registry:

$98,096.78

The Review Board established by the stature and appointed by the Governor testified to the legislature that 65% of the persons on the registry posed no risk to the community.

65% of the 17,707 persons on the registry is:

11,501

The savings realized by not registering the 65% the Review Board has found to not be a risk to the community would be:

$63,762.07

Assuming that most costs of the registry are linear, that is each person on the registry represents a fixed cost, the approximate fifteen million dollar ($15,000,000.00) cost of the registry would be reduced by approximately nine and three quarter million dollars ($9,750,000.00.) The Federal Government funds the registry in Georgia at approximately three million dollars ($3,000,000.00.) The net cost to the state, following the recommendations of the Review Board that the legislature established by statute, would be approximately two and a quarter million dollars ($2,250,000.00.)

This savings of approximately twelve and three quarter million dollars ($12,750,000.00) could be used, in part, to fund programs that have been proven to work at significantly lower cost. The balance could be applied to the state's growing deficit.

The Georgia public registry publishes the following information for every registrant:



The entire registry can be downloaded at Georgia Sex Offender Registry in .csv format and loaded into a spreadsheet or database. The downloaded registry can then be sorted. This exercise is hampered by the 'Crime' field. It obtains that the local county sheriff's deputies that enter the data to upload to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are not consistent in making entries and many words are misspelled. A review of the database finds various spellings for words. For example, the spelling of statutory, includes; stautory, stuatory, starory, and possibly others. Possession of Child Pornography includes; Pos Ch Porn, Possession of Child Pornography, Child Pornography, ad others.

In an effort to present some overview of the Georgia Sex Offender Registry, it becomes necessary to make some general selection of common spelling and accept that there will be some admixture of records found in each search.

The results of the database search are presented in two categories. The first category describes offend status and characteristics. The second category describes a range of offenses for which offenders are registered.

Offender Status
Total Registered: 17,707

Note:
* Compliant indicates the individual is released to the community and in compliance with registration and residency restriction requirements.
** May include two individuals who are currently in custody, see next note.
*** Two individuals listed as Incarcerated are also listed as Absconder.


Offense Type (based on sort results*)

Child Molestation Total: 6,572 Percentage: 43.2%	Rape Total: 1,575 Percentage: 10.3%	Statutory Rape Total: 3,214 Percentage: 21.1%	Sexual Battery Total: 1,409 Percentage: 9.5%	sexual Assault Total: 865 Percentage: 5.7%
Lewd & Lascivious Total: 733 Percentage: 4.8%	Enticing a Child Total: 481 Percentage: 3.2%	Sexual Exploitation Total: 202 Percentage: 1.3%	Child Pornography Total: 118 Percentage: 0.8%	Public Indecency Total: 47 Percentage: 0.3%

* Totals and Percentages are derived using the number of records returned from sorting the database. Sorting is complicated, as noted elsewhere by inconsistencies in the data, i.e. differing abbreviations used for charges, misspellings, and other errors.

There are 14,278 persons on the registry not in custody.

Of these, 426 are listed as absconders (including 2 listed as both incarcerated and absconded.)

Of the 140 persons listed as predators, 41 are listed as incarcerated and 3 are listed as absconder.

97% of those on the Georgia Registry are in compliance with Registration and Residency Restriction Requirements.

It is interesting that 97% of those labeled predator and not in custody are in compliance.

While not germane to this overview, some comment may be appropriate.

Statutory Rape is problematic in that an inspection of the Registry shows, by year of birth and year of conviction, that the offender was also a minor at the time of the offense. There is no indication in the registry of the age of the 'victim' and many of these offenses may have been between two minors close in age. There are also a large number of offenders in this category that had barely reached their majority at time of conviction and this may indicate a person slightly over 18 years and a 'victim' slightly under 18 years.

Statutory Rape also faces the conundrum of the 'victim' misrepresenting their age and being in a place and circumstance that supports that mis-representation.

In these cases it might be better to use the term 'Statutory Sex' to avoid the emotion raised by the word rape.

Overall, it appears, on first inspection, that persons forced on the Georgia Sex Offender Registry for life are complying with the registry at a rate of 97%. This value exceeds the known national recidivism rate of approximately 6%. That is, if, as in the national rate, all violations, including non criminal technical violations, traffic offenses, etc. are considered as recidivism, Georgia has a 3% recidivism rate.

This data should be considered and applied to the Georgia State Motto:

Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation

...Or are these just more feel good words... the registry certainly is feel good legislation.