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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Lance Wants To Expand Sex-Offender Notification

Associated Press

If Attorney General Alan Lance has his way, Idaho scout troops and community organizations could find out if they are employing former rapists and child molesters.

When the Legislature reconvenes in January, Lance will push for a package of bills called the Attorney General’s Child Protection Act of 1998. A chief element will be expanding sex-offender notification to the community, Lance said.

“It seems to me I have a right to know if my child is going to be placed with someone who has a history of crime,” Lance said Friday.

Under his proposals, local law enforcement could tell neighbors whether someone living nearby has a record of sex offenses. Scout troops and other organizations also could check lists of offenders and compare them to their own roster of employees and volunteers.

When a similar law passed in Illinois, Boy Scout officials found troops employed more than 100 former sex offenders as leaders, Deputy Attorney General William von Tagen said.

At the same time, courts have become more lenient with sex crimes. Adult offenders convicted between mid-1995 and mid-1996 were sentenced to probation more than twice as often and to prison only one-third as frequently as the year before, according to a 1997 state report.

So Lance also wants to propose allowing civil confinement of sex offenders after their sentences expire. Judges could place offenders in a state mental hospital indefinitely under the proposal.