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Arizona needs evidence-based laws on sexual offenses
April 28, 2026
This Arizona Republican wants sex offender registry reform. Here’s why.
Reprinted: By Ray Stern, Arizona Republic, Feb. 4, 2026, 5:01 a.m. MT
Key Points:
- Arizona Rep. Khyl Powell has introduced a bill that would allow some non-violent sex offenders to petition to be removed from the state registry.
- The bill is facing bipartisan opposition and is unlikely to receive a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.
- Powell is also advancing a separate bill that would allow people imprisoned for non-violent crimes to serve the end of their sentences on home confinement.
Gilbert Republican Khyl Powell is pushing forward a series of legislation focusing on criminal justice reform, which includes a bill that’s drawing both praise from advocates and bipartisan condemnation. Powell is hoping to advance a bill with Sen. Kevin Payne, R-Peoria, that would allow people imprisoned for non-violent crimes to be placed on home confinement when within 18 months of their release date.
But its a different bill that’s creating a stir at the Arizona Capitol. Under that proposal, some non-violent sex offenders would be allowed to drop their state registry requirements. Powell, 72, argued that lifetime registry status is inhumane, presenting an obstacle to employment and normal life for people who aren’t at risk of re-offending. “The intent is to free those who have been abused, who have become victims because of the laws,” said Powell, a business owner and former Phoenix Police Department employee in his first term as a lawmaker who has spent the last 14 years ministering to incarcerated people in Arizona prisons.
“This bill in particular is trying to open up this conversation and help legislators realize that we have a society filled with so many disparities, and so many in inequities, that it needs attention. We’re destroying families.”
But the legislation may be a bridge too far. He’s gotten “pushback” from other Republicans on his registry bill. Even some Democrats don’t like it. Under normal rules it needs a hearing and approval by the House Judiciary Committee to advance, and the chair of that panel told The Arizona Republic he wouldn’t allow that to happen.
“It basically will not ever be heard. Ever,” Rep. Quang Nguyen, R-Prescott Valley said. He declined comment on the home confinement bill. That stance means the bill may be unlikely to pass, but lawmakers could still get around the hearing if Powell is able to curry favor for it.
Though new to politics, he has experience with criminal justice reform. Last year, he pushed a bill eventually signed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs that compensates people who were wrongfully incarcerated. Powell’s also a member of the new Arizona Sex Offender Management Board, an office created in 2024 to manage and treat sex offenders.
“There’s already a mindset by many who say somebody breaks the law, then they go to jail, we’re just going see the key and throw it away and forget about them,” Powell said of some of the opposition to the bill.” That’s insane.” Whatever happens, Powell said he wants the bill to “open up this conversation and help legislators realize that we have a society filled with so many disparities and so many in inequities that it needs, it needs attention.”
How the bills work: People convicted of at least one of 22 designated criminal offenses in Arizona must abide by sex offender registry rules, usually for life. Sex offenders must reregister every year or if they’ve moved. Changing an email address or social media name must be reported to the local sheriff’s office within 72 hours. Failing to comply is a felony. Neighbors get notified when Level 2 and 3 offenders, considered more at risk for reoffending, move to a nearby dwelling.
More than 12,000 sex offenders are currently in the system run by the state Department of Public Safety, most of those are Level 2 and 3. The system includes several thousand more Level 1 registrants. The current law for taking someone out of the sex offender registry is impossible for many to overcome. No one sentenced to prison because of their sex crimes can petition out of the requirements. Offenders must have been under 22 when they committed their crime and cannot be younger than 35 when the petition is filed.
Powell’s sex offender registry bill would allow sex offenders to petition a court for termination of their status 10 years after a court ordered them onto the state registry or after five years for offenders who committed their crimes while a minor. To be successful, the person petitioning could not have committed another sex crime, “is not likely to commit another” sex offense and is “not a danger to the safety of others.”
A court-ordered hearing for the process would allow the offender to bring a lawyer, allow the state to oppose the request and ensure victims could attend. If rejected, the offender could appeal the ruling to the state Court of Appeals. “Thousands” of men and even women labeled as sex offenders were “seduced by the police” or society into entrapment-type cases, Powell said, adding he’s met many “innocent” people during his prison ministry work.
Pervasive pornography, which he is trying to exterminate from Arizona in a separate bill, is a “vicious poison” that can cause teenagers to do “stupid” things that affect their lives, he said. Some young people accidentally get “buried deep in child pornography” because they clicked on the wrong pop-up ad while playing a video game, he said. He didn’t have a specific example of that scenario.
Ben McJunkin, an assistant law professor at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, largely agrees with Powell’s efforts. “There are lots of people who are on the registry either for relatively minor offenses or offenses where you can understand how they got themselves into that situation without thinking that they remain a threat to the community,” he said.
Powell and Payne also want a new law that would depart from a 1993 “Truth in Sentencing” law that requires inmates to serve at least 85% of their prison sentences. Convicted people would still need to serve out their sentences under their identical bills, but could do it at home with an electronic monitor. Anyone who is within 18 months of their release date and serving time for drug offenses, fraud, trespassing or other non-violent crimes could apply for home confinement after one year in prison. Finding and keeping a job while under electronic monitoring would be mandatory. Their proposed law would be retroactive to 1993.
John Fabricius, executive director of the inmate advocacy group Praxis Initiative, said it would make roughly 2,800 currently incarcerated people eligible for early release. Powell said the home confinement proposal could sharply reduce recidivism by convicts, allow them to return to work and make it easier them to pay restitution to victims.
Rep. Alma Hernandez, a Tucson Democrat, said she respects Powell’s work on criminal justice issues but that “this bill is far too broad for me to support.” She’s uncomfortable with the plan for a court to determine whether the petitioner would commit another sex crime. Hernandez also finds the bill’s failure to distinguish between the three levels of danger and risk for the offenders “deeply troubling.”
Advocates say sex offender bill would help society, offenders.
Metro Phoenix residents Pat Borden and Vicki Campo both have sons in the criminal justice system. They started a group called Arizonans for Rational Sex Offender Laws, taking their fight to the Legislature over recent years, mostly to oppose new, harsher laws.
They were behind a registry petition bill in 2021 sponsored by former House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Mesa Republican. It was initially well received by a bipartisan group of lawmakers and passed the House. But after former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed it and 21 other bills to force lawmakers to deal with the state budget that year, a majority of lawmakers rejected Bowers’ bill in their second vote on it.
Borden’s son is serving a 75-year sentence for touching children over their clothes — she claims he’s innocent of the crimes.
Campo’s son served five years in prison after being convicted of dangerous crimes against children, Campo said. “There was no force, no coercion. He was a dumb college kid who hooked up with a high school girl,” Campo said of her son’s crime. “If my son lives with me, my neighborhood will be flyered.”
The women run through statistics showing sex offenders don’t commonly reoffend, contrary to what they say is the “myth” of offenders being unable to rehabilitate. Registration requirements don’t prevent recidivism in any substantial way, they say.
“The main point is this does not serve public safety,” Campo said, emphasizing the obstacle to finding housing. “All the things that make you stable in your community are forbidden.”
McJunkin, the ASU law professor said that the registry works if punishment for offenders is what society wants. But if the idea is taking steps to reduce someone’s chance of reoffending, giving a person a chance to prove they’re not at risk for recidivism should give them a way to exit the registry, he added. “I think this is a very reasonable bill,” he said.
Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X@raystern. https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/legisl
