Youngstown Daily Legal News

Crime victim address confidentiality program sought for Ohio

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: April 24, 2015

In response to the vulnerability of stalking, sexual assault and protecting the rights of victims of other crimes, the majority of U.S. states have established address confidentiality programs.

Sen. Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, wants Ohio to follow suit.

Williams is sponsoring Senate Bill 83 to create an address confidentiality program for individuals who reasonably believe that they are in danger of being threatened or physically harmed by another person.

ACPs offer victims a substitute, government-managed address to use in place of their actual address.

“Offenders have been known to use public data, such as voter or drivers’ license registries, to find a victim’s address,” Williams said.

“Since victims cannot falsify their address on public documents without facing criminal penalties — even to protect themselves — ACP laws bridge the gap by allowing victims to use an alternative ACP address when submitting information to public agencies.”

The bill would permit an adult, a parent or a guardian acting on behalf of a minor, incompetent or ward to apply to the Ohio Secretary of State to have an address designated by the Secretary of State serve as the person’s address or the address of the minor, incompetent or ward.

Applications would have to include, among other things, a sworn statement that the applicant fears for the safety of the applicant, the applicant’s children, or the minor, incompetent or ward.

SB 83 expressly prohibits any person from falsely attesting in an application that disclosure of the applicant’s address could be potentially harmful.

Under the bill’s provisions, no tier I, tier II or tier III sex offender/child-victim offender would be eligible to participate in the ACP.

“This legislation will allow victims to continue to engage in the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship, including voting,” Williams said. “It also provides a significant step toward freedom and safety for victims who are forced to escape from violence.”

If SB 83 is enacted, Ohio would become the 38th state to offer an ACP.

The bill also would exclude the residential and familial information of a federal law enforcement officer from the definition of a public record, include federal law enforcement officers among the protected individuals who are authorized to request a public office other than the county auditor to redact the person’s address from any record made available to the general public on the Internet, and include those officers among the protected individuals who may request the county auditor to replace the person’s name with the person’s initials on the general tax list and duplicate.

The proposal is before the Senate State and Local Government Committee.

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