Opinion ID: 1998065
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Reliability of the Scale

Text: Neither C.A. nor amici have presented us with an alternative method on which to classify registrants, yet they urge us to delay use of the Scale until it is empirically validated through years of field tests. They assert that the Scale is unreliable, untested, and operates in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Although the Scale was not field-tested, it was subjected to intense scrutiny by experts. Empirical validation of the Scale is neither feasible nor practicable. Researchers would have to release offenders and then wait for five or ten years until they have enough data to determine which factors were the best predictors of recidivism. Obviously, it was not the Legislature's intent for the Attorney General to wait ten years before assigning offenders to tier levels. The Legislature concluded that the need to protect children from the risk of re-offense by future offenders and previously convicted offenders warranted registering sex offenders as soon as possible. Thus, the Legislature mandated that the Attorney General promulgate guidelines and procedures for the notification required pursuant to the RCNL within sixty days of the effective date of Megan's Law. N.J.S.A. 2C:7-8. By analyzing the scientific literature on valid and reliable predictors of recidivism, the Committee, within the time constraints that it faced, created a useful and rational scale that can be used as a tool for deciding tier classification. Although the Scale has not been empirically validated through scientific field studies, the factors that comprise the Scale have been shown to be the best indicators of risk of re-offense. Based on the record presented by the parties and amici, we find that the Scale is an appropriate and reliable tool whose use is consistent with the requirements of the RCNL and Doe v. Poritz . In that case, we held that tier classification under the RCNL requires a grouping of offenders into three categories depending upon comparative risk of re-offense. Doe v. Poritz, supra, 142 N.J. at 32-33, 662 A. 2d 367. We explained that a substantially higher risk of re-offense must distinguish one group of offenders from those offenders in proximate groups. Ibid. However, because of the unavoidable uncertainties in this entire area, we did not believe it is realistic to impose requirements of proof of some statistical differention of the risk of re-offense between the classes or between the offender before the court and the typical offender of other classes. Id. at 33-34, 662 A. 2d 367. The Scale gives prosecutors a reasonably objective measure on which to assign registrants to the low, moderate, or high tier classification. Indeed, one of the great strengths of the Scale is that it can provide consistent measures of risk of re-offense. Because the Scale is concrete and simple to use, if the same individual were hypothetically being evaluated in different counties, he should receive a close, if not identical, score.