From Mark's Desk:
May 3, 2005

Closing the Sex Offender Loophole

by Senator Mark Norris

As Child Abuse Prevention month draws to a close, I am proud to report progress in the fight for additional protections against sex offenders on our streets. Recent tragedies victimizing children in Florida and elsewhere serve to remind us to be vigilant.

While many states, including Tennessee, are working to plug sex offender registry loopholes, I recently discovered what may have been the biggest loophole of them all. Sex offender inmates, during the course of incarceration, were eligible for trusty status without any notice whatsoever to the community at large.

Incredibly, this happened last year in Ripley, Tennessee. A convicted rapist, temporarily housed in the Lauderdale County jail awaiting transfer to the Tennessee Department of Corrections, was granted “trusty” status and allowed unsupervised travel privileges. He was serving eight years for raping a 14 year old boy at a church in middle Tennessee. Authorities allowed this inmate to leave jail to attend church.

That should never happen again. As a member of the Joint Committee on Corrections Oversight, I conducted a hearing late last year to investigate this incident. Corrections officials contended they had no authority to dictate policy to local law enforcement officials housing state inmates even if it meant that dangerous offenders were loose in the community.

This year, I sponsored Senate Bill 206 to set the record straight. The legislation, co-sponsored by my Senate colleague Diane Black (R-Gallatin), prohibits convicted sex offenders from temporary release as a “trusty” during incarceration. The bill passed the Senate unanimously last week and has been sent to the Governor for his signature.

We may not be able to legislate common sense, but we can toughen the consequences in the absence of it. The recent loss of innocent life to child sex predators in other states should serve as a wake-up call to Tennessee that more can always be done to safeguard our communities. I will continue to look for ways to do so in the months ahead.