OLYMPIA…  The Senate Human Services and Corrections Committee heard public testimony Thursday on two bills sponsored by Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood.  The first, requested by the state attorney general’s office, would limit the number of frivolous public records requests by inmates in state penitentiaries.  The second, identical to a bill Carrell proposed in 2008, would restrict the computer access of violent sex predators housed in the state’s Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. 

“Senate Bill 5130, the public-records request bill, is really a necessary piece of legislation,” Carrell said.  “Inmates are abusing the public-disclosure system and trying to dig up personal information on cops, judges, jailers, lawyers, and anyone else they might have a grudge against.  They’re also trying to clog up the system and waste taxpayer time and money, and I’m glad the attorney general asked me to sponsor this bill.” 

Carrell’s other bill, SB 5218, contains the same language as legislation that passed unanimously out of the same committee in the 2008 legislative session but got tied up on the floor of the House of Representatives.  Under SB 5218, the use of a computer by SCC residents would only be allowed if necessary for the treatment of an individual as deemed by Department of Social and Health Services representatives who operate the SCC.

“Possession of child pornography is already illegal under the law, and this bill would make it more difficult for sexual psychopaths to have access to it,” Carrell said. “Some of the individuals at the SCC use the computers there to view child porn on discs and flash drives smuggled in from the outside, or even create it themselves using drawing programs. 

“This is a common-sense measure,” Carrell added.  “As a society, nobody wants violent sexual predators to have access to child pornography.”