A Democratic state has proposed a drastic plan designed to reduce the backlog of approximately 12,500 sex offenders, but many residents, including sexual assault survivors, are livid about it.
Sex offenders who live, work or attend school in Oregon are expected to undergo a risk assessment by local corrections agencies or the Oregon Board of Parole by December 1, 2026.
The assessment is designed to help the state determine how likely those individuals are to commit new sex crimes.
The Oregon Board or Parole fear that they won’t make the deadline, so instead, the Board is supporting a new bill that will remove it, and another bill that would reduce the amount of offenders who need to be assessed.
Under the new proposal, the Board of Parole would only be required to complete risk assessments on offenders who are younger than 35 years old, as well as those that already have two or more sex crime convictions.
This means that hundreds of sex offenders won’t have to reassess or get reclassified.
The Board will continue with the assessments on people who are released from prison and those moving to Oregon.
‘The board has never been funded to be able to meet that deadline. Not even a significant influx of resources at this point will allow us to meet that deadline,’ Board Chairperson John Bailey said to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
State leaders in Oregon have proposed and support a new bill that would help reduce the backlog of about 12,500 sex offenders who need to undergo a risk assessment
Chairperson John Bailey is in support of Bill 821, which will remove the December 1, 2026, as well as Senate Bill 820, which will reduce the backlog amount the state currently faces. SB820 would remove more than half of the offenders from the list
While Bailey is supportive of the new legislation, rape victims and advocates feel like they’re being traumatized all over again.
‘It just makes the problem go away, but the problem will always be there, and it will get worse, and it will get worse,’ Courtney Gelbrich, a sexual assault advocate, told KATU.
Danielle Tudor, a sexual assault survivor, echoed Gelbrich’s views on the controversial decision.
‘If these bills pass this legislative session, we will never get oversight or power back over the sex offender registry and how it works,’ Tudor told the outlet.
‘I cannot protect children if violent, high risk offenders are allowed to attend my practices, to attend my games, to attend the pizza parties – it’s just unacceptable,’ Jane Mendoza, another advocate said.
Senate Bill 821 will remove the deadline, while Senate Bill 820 will reduce the backlog amount the state currently faces.
Bailey said SB 820 is a solution to the overflowing amount of sex offenders, and that research supports that younger offenders and those with multiple convictions are more likely to reoffend.
With the new bill, the agency predicts that the backlog will be reduced to 3,700 – more than half the number of those who are listed to be assessed currently.
Gelbrich and Mendoza contacted the outlet after seeing coverage of the state’s backlog of unclassified sex offenders in 2023.
At the time, they informed KATU of a level 3 sex offender – the highest level – who moved from New York to Oregon.
The offender remains unclassified due to the backlog, which means the state does not know about his high risk and how likely it is that he could reoffend.
‘Under Senate Bill 820, it appeared the man would not undergo a risk assessment,’ KATU stated.
Mendoza described her fear knowing that the level 3 offender, and others are out there undetected in their state.
‘To know that I had allowed kids to go to the bathroom during practice in pairs, knowing now that there was a registered sex offender who had been issued a level three in another state, and who was walking around unassessed in Oregon, because Oregon cannot get through their backlog, was shocking and horrifying,’ Mendoza said.
DailyMail.com contacted the Oregon Board of Parole for comment.
