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A.  The Legislature of Louisiana has long recognized the need to protect our most innocent and defenseless citizens from sex offenders, sexually violent predators, and child predators and has enacted statutory provisions to provide one of the most extensive sex offender registration and notification laws in the United States.

B.  The legislature has enacted provisions requiring lifetime registration of sexually violent predators and has legislatively created the sexually violent predator commission as the entity which would determine which offenders are sexually violent predators.  However, those provisions have rarely been utilized.

C.  The legislature finds that  sexually violent predators and child sexual predators often pose a high risk of engaging in sex offenses and crimes against victims who are minors after being released from incarceration or commitment and that the protection of the public from sexually violent predators is of paramount governmental interest.

D.  In consideration of the potentially high rate of recidivism and the harm which can be done to the most defenseless members of the public by sexually violent predators and child sexual predators, the state has a compelling interest in ensuring compliance with the provisions of law regarding sex offender registration and notification to protect the public from harm as those offenders are released from incarceration and are returned to their communities.

E.  The state also has a compelling interest in using its limited resources wisely and monitoring those offenders who pose the greatest risk to the health and safety of our citizens.

F.  Therefore, it is the policy of this state to facilitate the identification of those offenders who are sexually violent predators and child sexual predators and to require that those offenders register as sex offenders for life to ensure compliance with those registration and notification requirements by enactment of sex offender assessment panels to evaluate all sex offenders prior to their release from incarceration as provided for in this Chapter.

Acts 2006, No. 186, §2, eff. June 2, 2006.