Community Notification Work Group
Active dates:1995-1996
Function: Study issues relating to laws and proposed legislation authorizing community notification of information about convicted sex offenders, including offenders who have been or are about to be released from incarceration and offenders who have been sentenced to stayed prison sentences.
The work group was directed to report its findings and recommendations to the chairs of the house judiciary committee and the senate crime prevention committee by January 31, 1996.
History:
In 1994 the Legislature created a task force to study confinement of sexual predators, including commitment of psychopathic personalities. In Special Session that same year, the Legislature passed statutory amendments recommended by the task force, including additional commitment category: "sexually dangerous person".
The issue of community notification was first formally raised in a legislative context in the Task Force on Sexual Predators (from 1994). In its final report, the Task Force recommended: the enactment of legislation that provides for public notification when certain high risk sex offenders are released into a community, if the notification will result in increased public safety.
In response, legislation was introduced in the 1995 legislative session to accomplish that goal (House File 181). However, it was not enacted. Instead, the legislature called for further study of the issue by the Community Notification Work Group.
The work group met eight times to gather information, seek input from a broad spectrum,of individuals, and to formulate its recommendations. It held over nineteen hours of hearings and heard from eighteen witnesses including representatives of prosecutors, probation officers, victims and their famil.ies, realtors, law enforcement and others. In addition, the work group also toured the DNA laboratory and the Criminal Assessment Program at the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Membership:
15 members were required according the law, however the Task Force final report mentions 14 members.
Notes:
Final report completed.
Note: The Legislative Reference Library may have additional reports on or by this group available through our catalog.
Documents/Articles:
News clippings and documents. Agencies Notebook Collection, no date.
Record last updated:
09/07/2012
All information on this group from the Library’s collection of agency notebooks has been digitized. These
materials are incorporated into the “documents/articles” section of the record. Please contact a librarian with any questions. The Minnesota Agencies database is a work in progress.