States eye tougher sex laws
BOISE – Any registered sex offender who commits a second sex crime would get a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison under legislation being proposed by Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden.
If the repeat offender had been designated as a “violent sexual predator,” the mandatory sentence would be life.
“These are individuals who have demonstrated a propensity to commit sex crimes, have been through the penal system and have offended again,” Wasden said.
If the Legislature enacts the proposal into law, the 15-year mandatory sentence would apply for second-time offenders who commit anything from lewd conduct with a minor to statutory rape. Sex between an adult male age 19 or older and a female under age 18 is considered rape under Idaho law, whether or not it is consensual, and is currently punishable by one year to life in prison.
Wasden’s proposal comes as legislators from around the state are working on their own proposals to strengthen Idaho’s sex-offender laws, in the wake of the horrific murders of members of the Groene family this year by sex offender Joseph Duncan.
Rep. Jim Clark, R-Hayden Lake, is working on three bills, including one to sentence all designated violent predators to life without parole. “The idea … is to make Idaho one of the toughest places in the union for violent sexual predators to live,” Clark said.
Similar posturing is under way in Olympia, where a chorus of state lawmakers and Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna also are calling for changes in the way sex offenders are treated after release from prison.
Some want to renew the soon-to-expire “community protection zones” where the most serious sex offenders are not allowed to live. Others are calling for electronic monitoring of some offenders, possibly for life. “These people are the worst of the worst,” said Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt, R-Walla Walla. “They don’t belong on the streets.”
On Tuesday, McKenna said that he’ll propose several changes, including making offenders check in with police more frequently and increasing the likelihood of incarceration for those who fail to register. Offenders, McKenna said, should have “reasonable limits” on where they live and what they do.
But at the same time that authorities are talking about keeping more sex offenders in prison longer, prisons in both states are overflowing. Idaho, for example, has had to send more than 300 inmates out of state, at a cost of $6 million a year. Idaho’s prison population has more than doubled in the past decade.
Idaho Corrections Director Tom Beauclair has warned legislators that Idaho needs to build three new prisons at a cost of $160 million.
Wasden said, “We recognize that there is a cost associated with it, but we believe the protection is worth the cost.”
His office had no estimates as yet on how many additional prison cells the new law would fill, or what that would cost. “We certainly recognize the societal cost – we didn’t undertake this recommendation lightly,” Wasden said. The long sentences, he said, would be “a strong deterrent, and will provide additional protection to the public.”
Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, is working on several bills of his own on sex offenders. His ideas include restricting where they can live, strengthening sentences, and adding at least one more classification to Idaho’s sex offender registry.
The registry currently has just two levels – violent sexual predators, of whom there are currently 33, and everyone else, of whom there are several thousand. “The all-other includes the 60-year-old that 40 years ago got caught with an underage girlfriend,” Goedde said. “I don’t think he exemplifies the same hazard to the public that the individual that fell just short of the VSP classification does, yet we’re treating them the same in the eyes of Idaho statute.”
“To me, there needs to be at least one more division so we can better handle those people appropriately,” Goedde said.
Wasden said he’s aware of several proposals lawmakers have in the works, and doesn’t think his bills would overlap or compete with them.
Wasden also announced several other legislative changes he’ll propose: Creating a statewide registry, housed in the Secretary of State’s office and accessible online, of living wills and advance health directives; strengthening laws against misuse of government credit cards or purchasing cards; and further restricting frivolous liens against property.