Whether or not you have heard of Senate Bill 145, there is a lot of misinformation about what it entails. The previous law meant that any person involving themselves with a minor in a sexual manner was automatically put on the sex offender registry. The severity of the charges was based on the decisions of the judges and the convictions of the accused sex offender.
Now that Gavin Newsom has passed this bill in the state of California, the precedents have changed. Certain offenses are no longer required to be documented on the sex offender registry. These offenses include any one person that is within 10 years of age from the minor. A twenty-one year old, for example, is not automatically required to register if the minor was between ages 11 and 17.
Senate bill 145 spares any person guilty of non-forcible sodomy with a minor, oral coitus with a minor, or sexual penetration with a minor, as mentioned, from having to automatically register as a sex offender if the age gap is consistent with what is stated above.
Some of the students at Heritage High School were shocked when they first read about this bill. Haley Smith (12) was among the many students that were taken aback by the bill and its implications. The scariest part for her is the fact that most of her friends and family are unaware of the bill at all.
” I don’t think that California government passed this bill for the people themselves, but probably to protect higher up officials that could potentially be involved in that sort of thing,” said Smith.
Smith is not the only student that questioned the legitimacy of the government. Another student that goes by the name of Jurell Arana (11) was frightened by the bill because it fundamentally legalizes pedophilia.
“I think that it will be super ineffective and bring about a lot of future controversies. . . It essentially legalizes pedophilia in a way,” said Arana.
Milayna Lapitan (12) was trying to come up with a reason as to why the bill was able to be passed in the first place. Maybe it was disguised or kept on the down-low, but either way, most people fear the potential outcome.
“Whether or not this is about the LGBTQ community isn’t important. . . It doesn’t justify how ridiculous it is and I don’t know how it was passed anyway,” said Lapitan.
For more information on the bill as well as the legislation process of Senate Bill 145, visit the website provided here. This page includes a number of tabs at the top to further look into Senate Bill 145.