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Minutes for HB2295 - Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice
Short Title
Requiring people who live with offenders on probation, parole or postrelease supervision to report when such offender is not home during required hours.
Minutes Content for Mon, Feb 13, 2023
Chairperson Owens opened the hearing on HB2295. Natalie Scott provided an overview of the bill. (Attachment 1)
Cyndi Howerton, Representative, 98th District testified in support of the bill. Representative Howerton said the idea for this bill came from a constituent whose daughter was strangled and raped by a man who was on parole after his 2012 conviction of sexual assault. Representative Howerton sought input from several law enforcement experts and a district attorney as well as took some language from the mandatory reporter statutes for this bill. The goal is that if you live with someone that is on probation, parole, or postrelease supervision and you know that offender is violating their supervision guidelines, you need to make a call, text, or email to the supervision officer. (Attachment 2) Representative Howerton provided copies of news articles regarding the attack for the committee members. (Attachment 3) There were no questions for Representative Howerton.
Sarah Autrey, mother of the victim testified in support of the bill. Ms. Autrey said her written testimony gave the story of the nightmare their family went through over the past sixty-eight months. This bill intends to enhance the safety and security of the community by ensuring curfews are held to a higher standard in the future than they have been in the past. When housing an offender, it would be agreed upon that should the offender not be home during scheduled curfew hours, then the person providing living quarters for that offender would contact the appropriate authorities to inform them the offender is not home in an effort to potentially lower the time it takes to make arrests. (Attachment 4) There were no questions for Ms. Autrey.
Lailah Autrey, minor child testified in support of the bill. Ms. Autrey shared her personal story of the attack she suffered. She said she wants to make sure this does not happen to somebody else because someone was not where they were supposed to be. She said that if the person caring for her attacker would have just called him in for not being home when he was supposed to be home, maybe this would not have happened. (Attachment 5) There were no questions for Ms. Autrey.
Written only proponent testimony was submitted by Daphne Edwards, grandmother of the victim. (Attachment 6)
There was no neutral testimony.
Randy Regehr, Reno County Community Corrections testified in opposition to the bill. He said in the initial reading of this bill, it appears to be a good idea. However, there are two primary factors leading them to oppose the bill. The already overtaxed probation staff would be required to notify people living with the probationer that they will be subject to criminal penalties for failing to provide information and the housing instability the majority of the people they supervise experience. (Attachment 7) Mr. Regehr responded to questions from committee members.
Randall Bowman, Executive Director of Public Affairs, Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) testified in opposition to the bill. Mr. Bowman said the goal of this bill to reduce the likelihood of a similar victim in the future is admirable and shared by all at KDOC but their concerns with this bill are the housing instability for supervised individuals and the capacity to implement the notification requirements and respond to notices with their current resources. (Attachment 8) Mr. Bowman responded to questions from committee members.
Written only opponent testimony was submitted by Derek Hein, Private Citizen. (Attachment 9)
Chairperson Owens closed the hearing on HB2295.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:09 PM.
