The General Assembly passed legislation in 2006 that requires the Maryland Parole Commission to enter into and sign extended sexual offender parole supervision agreements with sex offenders sentenced on or after August 1 of that year. The statute specifically states that this supervision starts once the term of confinement, parole supervision or mandatory supervision, whichever is latest, is completed.

When an offender is determined to have violated the terms of their parole or mandatory release, the Parole Commission may revoke the supervision and require that person to serve the remaining portion of the sentence originally imposed by the court. But the commission does not have the legal authority to increase or impose an additional incarceration on an offender beyond his original sentence as set by the court.

For the commission, the issue with the legislation as currently written is that the extended supervision does not start until the full sentence has been satisfied and is expired. Therefore, practically speaking, there is no time left on the original sentence for the commission to take back -- there is no prison time to give, nor are there any additional criminal penalties it can impose should the offender violate the terms of the extended supervision.

Besides these practical issues with regard to any criminal recourse, no judge has referred an offender to the Maryland Parole Commission for this level of supervision. Repeated attempts to fix these flaws were unsuccessful in the past several legislative sessions. In order to accomplish the intent of this legislation, the Parole Commission must have viable tools at its disposal.

David R. Blumberg, Baltimore

The writer is chairman of the Maryland Parole Commission.

Send letters to the editor to talkback@baltimoresun.com.

Discuss this story and others in our talk forums Most recent news talk forum topics: More news talk forums: Local | Nation/World | Business | Health/Science | Computers/Technology Note: In-story commenting has been temporarily disabled due to technical issues. We are working to correct the issue and will bring back this feature in the future. In the meantime, please use our talk forums to discuss stories.