Sex Trafficking: Proposals in the 114th Congress to Amend Federal Criminal Law
Released: 2015-06-09T00:00:00

Summary:
Existing federal law outlaws sex trafficking and provides a variety of mechanisms to prevent it and to assist its victims. Members have offered a number of proposals during the 114th Congress to bolster those efforts. Several clarify, expand, or supplement existing federal criminal law.
For instance, Senator Cornyn's S. 178, which was packaged with Representative Poe's H.R. 181 and several proposals and enacted as the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-22), confirms that federal commercial sex trafficking prohibitions apply to the customers of such enterprises. P.L. 114-22 also constricts the defense of those who engage in illicit sexual activities with children. In addition, it affords state and federal law enforcement officials greater access to court-supervised electronic surveillance in trafficking cases. It expands victims' statutory rights and removes stringent limits on appellate enforcement of those rights.
As suggested in S. 178, Senator Kirk's S. 572, and Representative Wagner's H.R. 285, P.L. 114-22 brings culpable advertisers within the reach of the federal law which proscribes commercial sex trafficking.
P.L. 114-22 lengthens the permissible term of supervised release for those convicted of plotting to engage in commercial sex trafficking, language reminiscent of Senator Feinstein's S. 140, Representative Poe's H.R. 296, and Representative Granger's H.R. 1201.
S. 178 and Senator Burr's S. 409 proposed requiring Department of Defense (DOD) officials to provide the Attorney General with information relating to military sex offenders required to register under the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). P.L. 114-22 requires them to do so. Representative Speier's H.R. 956 would establish a separate DOD sex offender registry.
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney's H.R. 1311 would increase the penalties for tax evasion by sex traffickers and call for the establishment of a dedicated office within the Internal Revenue Service to investigate and prosecute tax-avoiding sex traffickers.
See also CRS Report R44064, Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act: A Legal Analysis of the Criminal Provisions of P.L. 114-22, by [author name scrubbed].

subsections: section_title: Introduction
paragraphs: The 114 th Congress opened with the introduction of a number of proposals that address human trafficking, particularly sex trafficking. Among them were proposals to amend existing federal criminal law, which would expand the coverage of federal sex trafficking laws; amend bail provisions; raise the limits on supervised release; authorize more extensive wiretapping; and adjust the application of federal forfeiture and restitution laws. The legislation includes the following:
Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act ( H.R. 181 ) (Representative Poe) (House passed); Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act ( S. 178 ) (Senator Cornyn) ( P.L. 114-22 ); Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act ( H.R. 296 ) (Representative Poe); Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act (SAVE Act) ( H.R. 285 ) (Representative Wagner) (House passed); Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act (SAVE Act) ( S. 572 ) (Senator Kirk); Combat Human Trafficking Act ( H.R. 1201 ) (Representative Granger); Combat Human Trafficking Act ( S. 140 ) (Senator Feinstein); Human Trafficking Fraud Enforcement Act ( H.R. 1311 ) (Representative Carolyn B. Maloney); Military Sex Offender Reporting Act ( S. 409 ) (Senator Burr); and Military Track Register and Alert Communities Act (Military TRAC Act) ( H.R. 956 ) (Representative Speier).
section_title: Substantive Offenses
paragraphs: The legislation would amend federal substantive law in three areas: commercial sex trafficking (18 U.S.C. 1591); the Mann Act, which outlaws transportation and travel for unlawful sexual purposes; and federal tax crimes. All but the tax crime proposal appears in P.L. 114-22 .
subsections: section_title: Commercial Sex Trafficking
paragraphs: The proposals would amend §1591 to (1) confirm the coverage of the customers of a commercial sex trafficking enterprise; (2) outlaw advertising of a commercial sex trafficking enterprise; (3) clarify the government's burden of proof with regard to the age of the victim; and (4) enlarge the permissible term of supervised release for commercial sex trafficking conspirators.
subsections: section_title: Liability of Patrons
paragraphs: Prior to amendment, §1591 outlawed commercial sex trafficking. More precisely, it outlawed:
knowingly recruiting, enticing, harboring, transporting, providing, obtaining, or maintaining another individual knowing or with reckless disregard of the fact that the individual will be used to engage commercial sexual activity either as a child or virtue of the use of fraud or coercion when the activity occurs in or affects interstate or foreign commerce, or occurs within the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of the United States.
It continues to outlaw separately profiting from such a venture.
Offenders face the prospect of life imprisonment with a mandatory minimum term of not less than 15 years (not less than 10 years if the victim is between the ages of 14 and 18). The same penalties apply to anyone who attempts to violate the provisions of §1591.
There were suggestions to expand §1591 to cover advertisers and to more explicitly cover the customers of a commercial sex trafficking scheme. At first glance, §1591 did not appear to cover the customers of a sex trafficking enterprise. Moreover, in the absence of a specific provision, mere customers ordinarily are not considered either co-conspirators or accessories before the fact in a prostitution ring. Nevertheless, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit found that the language of §1591(a) applied to the case of two customers caught in a law enforcement "sting" who attempted to purchase the services of what they believed were child prostitutes. "The ordinary and natural meaning of 'obtains' and the other terms Congress selected in drafting section 1591 are broad enough to encompass the actions of both suppliers and purchasers of commercial sex acts," the court declared.
S. 178 (Senator Cornyn), H.R. 181 (Representative Poe), and a number of other bills would explicitly confirm this construction by amending §1591(a) to read, in part, "Whoever knowingly ... recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, obtains, maintains, or patronizes, or solicits by any means any person ..." (language of the proposed amendment in italics). P.L. 114-22 adopts the proposal.
section_title: Age: Prosecutors' Burden
paragraphs: The same bills often amend the "knowledge of age" element in §1591(c) to reflect the clarifying amendment with respect to the customers of a commercial sex trafficking venture. The law already absolved the government of the obligation to prove that the defendant knew the victim was a child, if it could show that the defendant had an opportunity to "observe" the victim. The proposal, and now P.L. 114-22 , makes it clear that the government remains absolved regardless of whether the defendant is a consumer or purveyor of a child's sexual commercial services, provided the defendant had an opportunity to observe the child: "In a prosecution under subsection (a)(1) in which the defendant had a reasonable opportunity to observe the person so recruited, enticed, harbored, transported, provided, obtained, maintained, patronized, or solicited the Government need not prove that the defendant knew , or recklessly disregarded the fact , that the person had not attained the age of 18 years," (language of the proposed amendment in italics).
section_title: Advertisers
paragraphs: Section 1591 consists of two offenses: commercial sex trafficking and profiting from commercial sex trafficking. A few bills, S. 178 (Senator Cornyn), H.R. 285 (Representative Wagner), and S. 572 (Senator Kirk), for example, suggested amending §1591(a)(1) to outlaw knowingly advertising a person, knowing the victim would be used for prostitution. Even before amendment, however, there was some evidence that advertising might constitute a crime under either offense. Aiding and abetting would have provided the key to prosecution in both instances. Anyone who aids and abets the commission of a federal crime by another merits the same punishment as the individual who actually commits the crime. Liability for aiding and abetting requires that a defendant embrace the crime of another and consciously do something to contribute to its success. Anyone who knowingly advertised the availability of child prostitutes might have faced charges of aiding and abetting a commercial sex trafficking offense. An advertiser who profited from such activity might face charges under the profiteering prong of §1591.
Yet §1591 might have presented a technical obstacle. One of §1591's distinctive features was that its action elements—recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, obtaining—were activities that might be associated with aiding and abetting the operation of a prostitution enterprise. Section 1591, read literally then, did not outlaw operating a prostitution business; it outlawed the steps leading up to or associated with operating a prostitution business—recruiting, harboring, transporting, etc. Strictly construed, advertising in aid of recruitment, harboring, transporting, or one of the other action elements might have qualified as aiding and abetting a violation of §1591, while advertising the availability of a prostitute might not have.
Nevertheless, at least one court suggested that §1591 did outlaw operating a prostitution business, at least for purposes of aiding and abetting liability, and thus by implication advertising might have constituted aiding and abetting a violation of the section:
Pringler first argues that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction for aiding and abetting the sex trafficking of a minor [in violation of Section 1591].... We disagree. The record is not devoid of evidence to support the jury's verdict and show Pringler's integral role in the criminal venture. Pringler took the money that Norman and B.L. earned from their prostitution and used some of it to pay for hotel rooms where the women met their patrons. Pringler bought the laptop Norman and B.L. used to advertise their services. He drove Norman and B.L. to "outcall" appointments, and he took photographs of Norman, which he had planned for use in advertisements.
P.L. 114-22 resolves the uncertainty by adding advertising to the prostitution-assisting element of the commercial sex trafficking offense. The offense now reads in pertinent part:
Whoever knowingly- (1) in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, recruits, entices, harbors, transports, provides, obtains, advertises, or maintains by any means a person; ... knowing, or ... in reckless disregard of the fact, that means of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion described in subsection (e)(2), or any combination of such means will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act, or that the person has not attained the age of 18 years and will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) [language added by the amendment in italics].
After amendment, the knowledge element of §1591's trafficking and profiteering offenses are slight different. Advertising traffickers are liable if they knew of or recklessly disregarded the victim's status. Advertising profiteers are liable only if they knew of the victim's status:
Whoever knowingly- (1) in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, or within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, recruits ... advertises ... ; or (2) benefits, financially or by receiving anything of value, from participation in a venture which has engaged in an act described in violation of paragraph (1), knowing, or , except where, in an offense under paragraph (2), the act constituting the violation of paragraph (1) is advertising , in reckless disregard of the fact, that means of force, threats of force, fraud, coercion described in subsection (e)(2), or any combination of such means will be used to cause the person to engage in a commercial sex act, or that the person has not attained the age of 18 years and will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) [language added by the amendment in italics].
Knowledge is obviously a more demanding standard than reckless disregard, but the dividing line between the two is not always easily discerned, in part because of the doctrine of willful blindness. The doctrine describes the circumstances under which a jury may be instructed by the court that it may infer knowledge on the part of a defendant. Worded variously, the doctrine applies where evidence indicates that the defendant sought to avoid the guilty knowledge.
Since the element was worded in the alternative—knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact—the courts have rarely distinguished the two. One possible interpretation comes from comparable wording in an immigration offense which outlaws transporting an alien knowing or acting in reckless disregard of the fact that the alien is in this country illegally: "To act with reckless disregard of the fact means to be aware of but consciously and carelessly ignore facts and circumstances clearly indicating that the person transported was an alien who had entered or remained in the United States illegally." The courts refer to a similar unreasonable indifference standard when speaking of the veracity required for the issuance of a warrant. 
section_title: Conspirators' Supervised Release
paragraphs: Defendants sentenced to prison for federal crimes are also sentenced to a term of supervised release. Supervised release is comparable to parole. It requires a defendant upon his release from prison to honor certain conditions—such as a curfew, employment requirements and restrictions, limits on computer use, drug testing, travel restrictions, or reporting requirements—all under the watchful eye of a probation officer. As a general rule, the court may impose a term of supervised release of no more than five years. For several crimes involving sexual misconduct—commercial sex trafficking, for example—the term must be at least five years and may run for the lifetime of the defendant.
S. 178 and a number of other bills heralded the provision in P.L. 114-22 , with a proposal to add conspiracy to engage in commercial sex trafficking to the list of offenses punishable by this not-less-than-five-years-nor-more-than-life term of supervised release.
section_title: Statute of Limitations
paragraphs: Section 1595 establishes a cause of action for victims of human trafficking. The cause of action is subject to a 10-year statute of limitations. S. 178 would extend the statute of limitations in cases in which the victim is a child. Under those circumstances, the statute of limitations is 10 years after the child reaches the age of 18 years of age. P.L. 114-22 adopts the same position.
section_title: Mann Act
paragraphs: P.L. 114-22 extends the reach of a number of the Mann Act's prohibitions to encompass activities involving child pornography. Section 2423(b) of the Mann Act outlaws travel in U.S. interstate or foreign travel with intent to engage in "illicit sexual conduct." Section 2423(c) prohibits U.S. citizens or U.S. permanent resident aliens from engaging in illicit sexual conduct overseas. Section 2423(d) outlaws commercially facilitating overseas travel in order to engage in illicit sexual conduct. Each of the offenses is punishable by imprisonment for not more than 30 years, and the same punishment attaches to any attempt or conspiracy to commit any of the three.
Prior to the enactment of P.L. 114-22 , §2423 defined "illicit sexual conduct" as either (1) conduct that would be sexual abuse of a child if committed in U.S. maritime or territorial jurisdiction or (2) commercial sex trafficking of a child. P.L. 114-22 adds production of child pornography as an alternative third definition. Thus, it is a federal crime (1) under §2423(b) to travel in U.S. interstate or foreign travel with the intent to produce child pornography; or (2) under §2423(c) for a U.S. citizen or permanent resident alien to produce child pornography overseas; or (3) under §2423(d) to commercially facilitate overseas travel in order to produce child pornography.
Defendants previously enjoyed an affirmative defense in "illicit sexual activity" cases involving commercial sex trafficking, if they could establish by a preponderance of the evidence that they reasonably believed that the victim was over 18 years of age. P.L. 114-22 limits the defense to cases in which the defendant establishes the reasonableness of his belief by clear and convincing evidence. The difference between preponderance of the evidence and clear and convincing is the difference between more likely than not and highly probable.
The final Mann Act amendment involves prosecutors. Section 2421 outlaws transporting another in interstate or foreign commerce for purposes of prostitution or other unlawful sexual activity. Section 303 of P.L. 114-22 instructs the Attorney General to honor the request of a state attorney general to cross-designate a state prosecutor to handle a §2421 prosecution or to explain in detail why the request has not been honored. The designated state prosecutor—or prosecutors, should the Attorney General receive requests from both the state from which, and the state into which, the victim was transported—presumably operates under the direction of the U.S. Attorney. 
P.L. 114-22 's Mann Act amendments reflect the position taken in the earlier bills.
section_title: Tax Enforcement
paragraphs: The Internal Revenue Code makes taxable income from any source lawful or unlawful. H.R. 1311 (Representative Carolyn B. Maloney) would increase the penalties associated with various tax offenses committed by sex traffickers, and would direct the creation of an office of tax law enforcement to invest tax offenses committed by sex traffickers. The enhanced enforcement would be focused on tax offenses relating to crimes proscribed in:
18 U.S.C. 1351 (foreign labor contracting fraud); 18 U.S.C. 1589 (forced labor); 18 U.S.C. 1590 (peonage, slavery, involuntary servitude, or forced labor trafficking); 18 U.S.C. 1591(a) (commercial sex trafficking); 18 U.S.C. 1952 (Travel Act); 18 U.S.C. 2421 (transporting an individual for unlawful sexual purposes); 18 U.S.C. 2422 (coercing or enticing travel for unlawful sexual purposes); 18 U.S.C. 2423(a) (transporting a child for unlawful sexual purposes); 18 U.S.C. 2423(d) (trafficking in travel to engage in unlawful sex with a child); 18 U.S.C. 2423(e) (attempting or conspiring to transport a child or to travel and engage in unlawful sex with a child); 8 U.S.C. 1328 (importing aliens for immoral purposes); and state or territorial laws prohibiting promotion of prostitution or commercial sex acts.
subsections: section_title: Tax Offenses
paragraphs: Among other offenses, the Internal Revenue Code outlaws (1) attempting to evade or defeat a federal tax; (2) willfully failing to file a return; and (3) making false statements in a tax matter. H.R. 1311 would increase the maximum terms of imprisonment and the maximum fines for each of these offenses when one or more of the designated sex trafficking offenses generated the income involved:
H.R. 1311 would also expand liability for those who provide their employees with false W2 forms and other required forms. Existing law limits employer liability for furnishing employees with a false statement to the misdemeanor provisions of §7204 and §6674. H.R. 1311 would add §7201 and §7203, which would increase potential liability for providing false statements to employees to imprisonment for not more than 10 years, where the misconduct involved income generated by one or more of the sex trafficking offenses.
section_title: Enforcement Office
paragraphs: H.R. 1311 would direct the Secretary of the Treasury to create an Internal Revenue Service office specifically for the investigation and prosecution of designated sex trafficking-related tax offenses. The bill anticipates that the office would work cooperatively with the Justice Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Innocence Lost National Initiative. The bill would authorize an appropriation of $4 million for FY2016 supplemented with an appropriation equal to the amounts collected as a consequence of its activities. It would also make sex trafficking victims eligible for the whistleblower/informant rewards, which can top out at 30% of the amounts collected as a consequence of their disclosures.
section_title: Victims
subsections: section_title: Crime Victims' Rights
paragraphs: Section 3771 provides victims of federal crimes and victims of crime under the District of Columbia Code with certain rights, including the right to confer with the prosecutor and to be heard at public proceedings concerning pleas and sentencing in the case. The rights are reinforced by a right to notice from federal officials of available services. Victims may appeal a failure to honor their rights by seeking a writ of mandamus, and the appellate court must decide the matter within three days (72 hours), or in the case of a stay or continuance within five days.
Most often, mandamus is an extraordinary remedy awarded only on rare occasions and only if at least three prerequisites can be satisfied. "First, the party seeking issuance of the writ must have no other adequate means to attain the relief he desires.... Second, the petitioner must satisfy the burden of showing that his right to issuance of the writ is clear and indisputable. Third, even if the first two prerequisites have been met, the issuing court, in the exercise of its discretion, must be satisfied that the writ is appropriate under the circumstances."
The federal appellate courts, however, cannot agree on whether this stringent traditional mandamus standard or the usual appellate standard (abuse of discretion or legal error) should apply in Crime Victims' Rights Act appeals.
P.L. 114-22 resolves the dispute in favor of the less demanding abuse of discretion or legal error standard used for most appeals. It allows the parties to extend the three-day deadline for the appellate court to take up the petition for a writ of mandamus, but not the five-day limitation on stays or continuances in appellate mandamus cases concerning victims' rights. Finally, P.L. 114-22 creates two new additional rights—the right to timely notice of a plea bargain or deferred prosecution agreement and the right to be informed of the rights under the Crime Victims' Rights Act and the benefits under the Victims' Rights and Restitution Act. The House committee report indicates that the amendment was designed to "clarif[y] Congress' intent that crime victims be notified of plea agreements or deferred prosecution agreements, including those that may take place prior to a formal charge."
Here, too, in its victims' rights treatment, P.L. 114-22 follows the path laid out in earlier bills.
section_title: Special Assessments
paragraphs: Federal criminal convictions come with a special assessment ranging from $5 to $100 for individuals and from $25 to $400 for organizations, depending on the seriousness of the offense. Receipts are deposited in the Crime Victims Fund and used for victims' assistance and compensation.
P.L. 114-22 establishes a second Fund, the Domestic Trafficking Victims Fund, and second special assessment, this one for $5,000 directed to the Fund for the assistance and compensation of victims of trafficking and sexual abuse. The assessment is imposed on those convicted offenses under:
18 U.S.C. ch. 77 (peonage, slavery, and human trafficking); 18 U.S.C. ch. 109A (sexual abuse in U.S. special maritime and territorial jurisdiction); 18 U.S.C. ch. 110 (child pornography); 18 U.S.C. ch. 177 (interstate or foreign transportation for unlawful sexual purposes); or 8 U.S.C. 1324 (smuggling aliens other than immediate family members).
The Fund is to receive two types of transfers. The first is to be a transfer from the general fund of the Treasury in amounts equal to those collected from these assessments. These transferred amounts are to be appropriate and made available to the Attorney General, in coordination with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, through FY2019 for the services and benefits (other than health care services and benefits) under:
42 U.S.C. 14044c (grants for enhanced state and local anti-trafficking enforcement); 42 U.S.C. 13002(b)(grants for child advocacy centers); 22 U.S.C. 7105(b)(2)(grants to state, tribes, and local governments to enhance trafficking; victims' services); and 22 U.S.C. 7105(f)(assistance for U.S. victims of severe forms of trafficking).
The second transfer is to be from appropriations under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended, in amounts equal to those generated by the special assessments, but not less than $5 million or more than $30 million per fiscal year. The amounts are also to be available to the Attorney General, in coordination with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, for health care services under:
42 U.S.C. 14044a (grants for trafficking victims' assistance programs); 42 U.S.C. 14044b (residential treatment for victims of child trafficking); 42 U.S.C. 14044c (grants for enhanced state and local anti-trafficking enforcement); 42 U.S.C. 13002(b)(grants for child advocacy centers); 22 U.S.C. 7105(b)(2)(grants to state, tribes, and local governments to enhance trafficking; victims' services); and 22 U.S.C. 7105(f)(assistance for U.S. victims of severe forms of trafficking). 
section_title: Forfeiture
paragraphs: Forfeiture is the confiscation of property based on its proximity to a criminal offense. Confiscation may be accomplished either as a consequence of the property owner's conviction (criminal forfeiture) or in a civil proceeding conducted against the property in rem (civil forfeiture). In either case, the proceeds from most federal forfeitures are deposited either in the Justice Department's Asset Forfeiture Fund or the Department of the Treasury's Forfeiture Fund, and are available for law enforcement purposes.
The forfeiture-triggering relationship between property and confiscation varies from one crime to another. Forfeitures relating to financial crimes sometimes apply to property "involved in" the offense. For example, property "involved in" a money laundering transaction is subject to confiscation. In the case of human trafficking, property that constitutes the proceeds from, that was used, or that was intended for use, to commit or facilitate, a trafficking offense is subject to criminal and civil forfeiture. As S. 178 and H.R. 296 suggested, P.L. 114-22 makes property "involved in" or proceeds "traceable to" a trafficking offense subject to criminal and civil forfeiture as well.
Defendants convicted of human trafficking offenses must be ordered to pay victim restitution. As a general rule, the Attorney General may transfer forfeited property to pay victim restitution. S. 178 and H.R. 296 proposed, and P.L. 114-22 requires, such a transfer, without reducing or mitigating the defendant's restitution obligations.
Subject to annual appropriations, the Attorney General may use the Justice Department Asset Forfeiture Fund for informants' fees in drug and money laundering cases. The Secretary of the Treasury enjoys comparable authority with respect to the Treasury Fund, although apparently without the need for annual appropriations. P.L. 114-22 , as S. 178 and H.R. 296 proposed, expands the authority to include access to the Justice Department Fund for informants' fees in human trafficking cases, and to the Department of the Treasury Fund for informants' fees paid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in human trafficking cases.
section_title: Bail
paragraphs: Existing federal law states that an individual charged with a federal offense should be released on his own recognizance, unless the magistrate is convinced that certain conditions must be imposed to insure individual or community safety or to insure the appearance of the accused at subsequent judicial proceedings. The government may seek pretrial detention of an accused charged with a crime of violence, a federal crime of terrorism, or with commercial sex trafficking. H.R. 296 , S. 178 , and ultimately P.L. 114-22 amended the definition of "a crime of violence" for these purposes to include any of the human trafficking offenses.
section_title: Wiretapping Authority
paragraphs: In the investigation of certain serious federal and state crimes, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, sometimes referred to in part as Title III, authorizes federal and state law enforcement officials to engage in court-supervised surreptitious interception of telephone, face-to-face, or electronic communications. The list of these federal crimes includes commercial sex trafficking (18 U.S.C. 1591), but not the other offenses outlawed in the slavery, peonage, and forced labor chapter of the federal criminal code. The list of state crimes includes murder, robbery, kidnaping, etc., but not prostitution or human trafficking.
P.L. 114-22 , as proposed in S. 178 and H.R. 181 , permits federal court-ordered interceptions in connection with investigations involving peonage (18 U.S.C. 1581 (peonage), 1584 (involuntary servitude), 1589 (forced labor), and 1592 (trafficking-related document misconduct)). It also permits state prosecutors to engage in state court-supervised interceptions in cases of human trafficking, child pornography production, and child sexual exploitation to the extent that state law permits.
section_title: Sex Offender Registration
paragraphs: The federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), as the name implies, requires individuals convicted of a federal, state, tribal, foreign, or military sex offense to register with, and continue to provide current information to, state or tribal authorities (jurisdictions) in any location in which they live, work, or attend school. The reporting obligations apply to those convicted of qualifying sex offenses either before or after the enactment of SORNA. SORNA accomplishes its notification goal through the creation of a system which affords public online access to state and tribal registration information. The system allows the public to determine either where a particular sex offender lives, works, and attends school, or the names and location of sex offenders who live, work, or attend school within a particular area. SORNA requires jurisdictions to satisfy minimum standards for the information they collect and maintain.
Section 114 of SORNA requires registrants to provide (1) their name and any alias; their Social Security number; (2) their place of residence; (3) the name and address of their employer; (4) the name and address of any school they are attending; (5) the description and license plate number of any vehicle they own or operate; and (6) any other information the Attorney General requires. 
Section 114 requires jurisdictions to include within their registries (1) a physical description of the offender; (2) the text of the statute defining the crime which requires the offender to register; (3) the offender's criminal history; (4) a current photograph of the offender; (5) a set of the offender's fingerprints; (6) a sample of the offender's DNA; (7) a copy of the offender's driver's license or other identification card; and (8) any other information the Attorney General requires.
As previously proposed in S. 178 (Senator Cornyn), S. 409 (Senator Burr), and H.R. 956 (Representative Speier), P.L. 114-22 directs the Secretary of Defense to provide the Attorney General with information described in §114 relating to military sex offenders whom SORNA requires to register with state or tribal authorities. The requirement would presumably apply to those convicted of registration-requiring offenses both before and after the enactment of SORNA.
H.R. 956 (Representative Speier) would further amend SORNA to increase the role of the Department of Defense (DOD) by establishing a separate sex offender registry. Military sex offenders, who are obligated to maintain current registration information with state or tribal authorities any place where they live, work, or attend school, would also be required to register with the Secretary of Defense upon their release from custody or entry into the United States. The proposal makes no explicit provision for military sex offenders convicted prior to the enactment of SORNA.
SORNA requires states and certain tribes to maintain a jurisdiction-wide sex offender registry that meets SORNA requirements. H.R. 956 would impose the same obligation on the Secretary of Defense, but without the fiscal sanctions which attend a state's failure to comply. In addition to the demand to register where they live, work, or attend school, sex offenders being released from custody must also register with the jurisdiction in which they were convicted. H.R. 956 would require military sex offenders to register upon release in addition with the Secretary of Defense.
H.R. 956 , like S. 178 and S. 409 , would require the Secretary of Defense to include the same information within his registry regarding a recently released sex offender that states and tribes are required to capture: physical description of the sex offender; text of the law proscribing the conduct for which the sex offender was convicted; the sex offender's criminal history; fingerprints, a DNA sample, and a photograph of the sex offender; a copy of the offender's driver's license or other official identification of the sex offender; and any additional information required by the Attorney General.
The Secretary would have to make this information publicly available online, and would be required to report the information to the Attorney General, appropriate law enforcement, and educational, public housing, social service officials, as well as assorted related public and private entities. The Attorney General would be required to include the information in the national registry and to forward updated information received from various jurisdictions relating to a military sex offender to the Secretary of Defense. The national registry would be required to include military sex offender information available on the Secretary's website.
SORNA mandates that "appropriate officials" and "appropriate law enforcement agencies" take action when a sex offender fails to comply with the requirements of a state or tribal registry. H.R. 956 would establish a comparable command for action when a military sex offender fails to comply with the requirements of the DOD registry. It is unclear whether the amendment is intended to expand the terms "appropriate official" and "appropriate law enforcement agencies" to encompass DOD officials and law enforcement agencies, giving them authority over discharged military sex offenders over whom they would otherwise have no jurisdiction.
SORNA obligates the Attorney General to develop and support the computer software necessary for jurisdictions to comply with SORNA's standards. H.R. 956 would enlarge the obligation to enable establishment and maintenance of a DOD registry.
Finally, H.R. 956 would require military sex offenders entering the United States to register with the Secretary of Defense.