Delay in passing sex offender law has cost V.I. $92,000

ST. CROIX - A primary incentive to change the local sexual offender-registration law was the federal funding tied to the passage of the bill.

According to testifiers, the territory already has lost out on $92,000 in federal law enforcement funding this year and stands to lose a similar amount for each year that the territory is not in compliance with the mandates required by the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act of 2006. However, the Virgin Islands is not the only state that was noncompliant as of the July 2011 deadline.

About 34 other states failed to meet the requirements, said V.I. Attorney General Vincent Frazer.

He blamed the failure to meet the deadline on the federal government's failure to communicate and a lengthy drafting process, Frazer said.

The territory received two deadline extensions since the federal law passed in 2006, Frazer said.

The law initially allowed states three years to come into compliance, however the V.I. Justice Department did not find out about the requirements until that deadline had almost passed.

"No state was in compliance in 2009," Frazer said. "That's when we started to research."

The federal government pushed back the deadline ultimately to July 2011.

The task force created to come into compliance with the federal mandates began work once it became aware of the requirements, said Monica Carbon, counsel to the attorney general.

Public Safety, Homeland Security and Justice Committee chairman, Sen. Sammuel Sanes, asked a question that had been a concern of a number of senators at a previous hearing.

"Why has it taken this long to get this bill to this body?" asked Sanes.

"We started looking at it in 2009," Frazer said, adding that the task force met for working meetings on a monthly basis. "That took us, basically, from 2009 to March 2011."

The draft amendments were completed in March, at which point it was sent to the governor's legal counsel for review and sent to the V.I. Legislature during the summer, he said.

The Justice Department has started to implement some requirements - having already received $463,030 from the U.S. Justice Department - but the amendments' passage should be the last hurdle to reaching compliance.

The Law Enforcement Planning Commission, or LEPC, is the recipient of the federal funding - called Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, or JAG - that is tied to the passage of the bill, but the funding is distributed among local law enforcement agencies. The federal government said it would cut JAG funding by 10 percent annually until the territory comes into compliance.

Without the funds, "law enforcement agencies that use the JAG funding will be adversely affected in their efforts to combat crimes and keeping the community safe," said LEPC Commissioner Victor Browne.

In the last two years, the V.I. Police Depart-ment received $299,000; the Justice Department received $400,000; and the V.I. Corrections Bureau received $150,000, Browne said.

That grant "supports all components of the criminal justice system, from multi-jurisdictional drug, gun and gang task forces, crime prevention and domestic violence programs, the courts, corrections, treatment, and justice information sharing initiatives," Browne said.

The territory possibly could regain some of the funding, but the recouped funds would have to be used toward the implementation of the act, Browne said.

- Contact Daniel Shea at 714-9127 or email dshea@dailynews.vi.

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