OLYMPIA, WA – A Washington state bill would reduce the length of time an individual must register as a sex offender after being convicted in a “net nanny” operation, while ending the lifetime community supervision.
Net nanny operations are carried out by the Washington State Patrol Missing and Exploited Children Task Force, in which undercover officers pose as children to potential sex offenders. According to the state, between 2015-2023 the task force carried out 20 sting operations and made 311 arrests. Under current state law, those convicted must register as a sex offender and are subject to community supervision for life.
Senate Bill 5312 sponsored by Sen. Lisa Wellman, D-Mercer Island, would change that by reducing the registration length to five years and community supervision to three years. However, this change would only apply for those with no prior criminal background for a sex offense.
The bill was introduced last session but failed to clear its original committee after a public hearing. In November, the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines Commission voted to recommend a policy to the Legislature that would provide alternative sentencing for certain sex offenses that do not involve a real victim.
James McMahan with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs opposed the bill because the enforcement protects children.
“It is despicable what some seek to do against the most vulnerable and precious among us, and we must ensure that we take all reasonable steps necessary to protect them,” he said. “We’re talking about people who took specific and deliberate steps to have sex with what they thought was a child.”
He added that “the fact that these offenses are not committed against a real child is solely due to our diligence and should not be credited to a predator – in fact, their actions are all based on their desire and their belief and their intent to cause sexual harm to a minor.”
Testifying at the bill’s Jan. 27 public hearing in the Senate Committee on Law & Justice, Wellman told committee members that one of her constituents was arrested in a net nanny operation.
“At no time was my constituent speaking with a child, or even anything or anybody pretending to be a child,” she said. “Any child mentioned was fictional. I am not here to argue about the trial, the prison sentence, or what has gone on from there. It’s over, and in the past, the justice system did their role…but this is about making a sentence a life sentence.”
She added that SB 5312 is “not a holistic kind of whitewashing or anything.”
“It’s saying with no prior record of any wrong wrongdoing with a child, with nothing on your computer, in your home, in your background….if that’s the case, that there’s nothing that even suggests you’re interested in sexual activity with a child, and now you’ve served your time in prison, shouldn’t there come a time when you can live a life and know for certain that that time can come?” she testified “And that’s what this bill does.”
Among those testifying in favor of the bill was criminal defense attorney Emily Gause, who told the committee that net nanny operations involve “many defendants who have no prior history of sexual misconduct. They are often simply looking for companionship on adult dating websites when they are lured in by detectives posing as adults, who then gradually lower their age throughout the course of the conversation. These stings are a terrible use of resources.”
No further action is scheduled for SB 5312.
