Fluffy and Inconsistent

Sometimes being able to focus on the moment is a good thing for a politician. However, there needs to be a little consistency from moment to moment.

The Herald-Leader has a story on Kathy Stein’s bill to reduce over-crowding of our jails.

Misdemeanor criminals would see their jail sentences deeply cut under a bill filed this week by the chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, on Wednesday said she hasn't decided how aggressively she will push House Bill 513, which would reduce the maximum penalty for Class A misdemeanors from 12 to 6 months and for Class B misdemeanors from 90 to 30 days.

The cost of overcrowded jails and prisons is bankrupting the state, which lawmakers now realize as they struggle to pass a balanced budget, Stein said.

This is a good idea and should be supported. Let’s hope Stein aggressively pushes the bill. In the story is this comment by Attorney General Jack Conway.

Facing steep cuts, Attorney General Jack Conway said he's likely to kill a $400,000 program that provides crime victim advocates, and he might lay off some of his 230 employees. Conway said he is so poorly funded already that he has only one employee working part-time to enforce environmental laws.

Now on the same page of the paper we have Conway commenting on “cypersafety legislation”.

Besides the cybersafety legislation, Conway said, he will create an Internet crimes unit to investigate crimes committed online, from scams to solicitation of a minor. It is expected to be operational this spring.

Does anyone see a disconnect here? Conway is looking at possible layoffs and is creating a new unit at the same time. What other part of the office is going to be short staffed along with environmental law enforcement?

And while we’re on the topic of cyber crimes, Conway’s bill addresses the following areas:

The bill allows police to use specially trained or non-sworn personnel for online stings. It also prohibits registered sex offenders from using social-networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Conway said the bill will allow Kentucky prosecutors to criminally charge sex offenders removed from such sites. Since last May, he said, MySpace has removed the profiles of 40,000 sex offenders, 350 of them from Kentucky.

The legislation also requires sex offenders to update their e-mail addresses and online identifiers with the state registry of sex offenders as they update their home addresses.

Other provisions of HB 367 call for amending Kentucky's stalking laws to include cyberstalking, clarifies that it is a crime for persons to transmit live sexually explicit images of themselves to minors over the Internet and allows police to seize personal property, such as a computer or car used in online sexual offenses against children.

The headline for the story refers to the bill as “Icing on the cake”, and that is exactly what it is. This bill is the fluff covering the cake; it’s not the main course. There are things Conway must do if he wants to be effective in fighting cyber crime the starting list is here.

This is a nice fluffy start, but I’m still waiting for the main course.