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Utah House rejects bill to collect additional offender-registry risk data
Summary
Representative Stoddard said the bill would not change registry placements but would gather risk-assessment data for people on probation; Representative Acton questioned whether the assessments are validated. The House rejected HB 35, 27–41.
Representative Stoddard introduced House Bill 35 as a narrow data-collection measure intended to gather risk-assessment information about people placed on the state offender registry who are sentenced to probation. "This bill does not change how we operate the registry," Stoddard said, and "all that it does is it is an attempt to gather data on the risk that these people placed on the registry are."
During questioning, Representative Acton asked whether risk assessments have been analyzed to determine their accuracy or correlation with recidivism. Stoddard responded that many of the assessments have not been consistently reviewed: "A lot of these things just have been sitting...we don't know a whole lot that goes on with these risk assessments," and he said corrections currently uses the assessments but that the bill is intended to ensure better data collection to inform sentencing and registry policies.
After brief discussion and waived summation, the House voted. HB 35 failed on the floor, 27 yes and 41 no. The clerk announced the bill would be filed with staff for record-keeping.
