Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Contact: Spence Jackson, 573-751-0290
Blunt Fulfills Promise; Signs Priority Legislation to Protect Children from Sexual Predators
JEFFERSON CITY–Gov. Matt Blunt kept his promise to enact tough mandatory minimum sentences for sexual predators that prey on young victims. In ceremonies across the state the governor signed House Bill 1698, modeled after Florida's Jessica's law and among the governor's top legislative priorities this year.
"I am proud to sign this law protecting Missouri's children from heinous sexual predators and from soft-on-crime judges who might otherwise let those who prey on our children escape with just a slap on the wrist," Blunt said. "I called for this tough new law because there is no excuse for these crimes and no excuse not to protect our children."
The law introduces a host of new tools to strengthen Missouri's sex offender laws. It mandates a lifetime sentence with a minimum of 30 years served for forcible rape or forcible sodomy when the victim is younger than age 12 and calls for lifetime monitoring for this group of sexual offenders. The legislation increases the penalty for persistent sexual offenders from 30 years to life in prison without eligibility for probation or parole.
The bill strengthens laws protecting children from predators who use the internet to access victims and creates a grant program to help investigate internet sex crimes against children. It further specifies that laws apply even when a sexual predator is communicating with law enforcement posing as a child and increases the penalty for enticing, persuading, coaxing, soliciting or luring a child to a felony with a prison term not less than five years. The new grant program will provide funding to multi-jurisdictional internet cyber crime law enforcement task forces and other law enforcement agencies to pay for detectives and computer forensic personnel. The governor plans to approve the $250,000 allocated in next fiscal year's budget for the grant program.
In addition the bill adds new information to existing sex offender registries and a toll free number to make the information more accessible. Under the law, sex offender registries would include known alias, available photos, physical descriptions, qualifying offenses, release date and other new details on top of information already available. The bill also closes potential loopholes surrounding the definition of sexual contact with a student.
The bill contains an emergency clause and complements legislation Blunt signed last year strengthening Missouri's sex offender laws and requiring lifetime monitoring for criminals convicted of certain sex offenses against children as a condition of parole. Missouri was among the first states in the nation to require the lifetime global positioning satellite (GPS) tracking.
"Today I am sending a message to sexual offenders - stay out of our state, stay away from our children. These crimes will not be tolerated, period," Blunt said.
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