Changes to Post-Release Supervision for Sex Offenders

I mentioned in my previous post that the Justice Reinvestment Act (JRA) is not the only new legislation that impacts post-release supervision (PRS). This post looks at S.L. 2011-307, which changes the way PRS applies to sex offenders. (I also mentioned that I would talk about post-release supervision for certain impaired drivers under Laura’s Law, but it turned out that I had so much to say about sex offenders that I decided to leave that for another day.) Under existing law, the period of post-release supervision in the community is 5 years for Class B1–E offenders imprisoned for a crime that requires sex offender registration. But those offenders face only 9 months of active time if their PRS is revoked—only 9 additional months are built into their active sentences, and they are released from prison 9 months before attaining their maximum. Faced with a choice between 5 years of supervision in the community and 9 months in prison, some offenders opt for the latter. Under G.S. 15A-1368.2(b) a person technically cannot refuse PRS, but some offenders get around that by violating their conditions of supervision on purpose. To put a stop to that, S.L. 2011-307 amends G.S. 15A-1340.17(f) to provide that for sex offenders convicted of Class B1–E felonies, the maximum sentence is 120 percent of the minimum, rounded to the next highest month, plus 60 additional months. The law then makes a parallel change to G.S. 15A-1368.2(a) to provide that those offenders will be released from prison onto PRS 60 [...]