Legislators To Keep Heat On Sexual Predators Plan To Continue Incarceration Stalls, But Further Look Pledged

Legislation to allow Idaho to lock up sexual predators indefinitely - even after they’ve served their prison time - won’t pass this year, a Senate committee declared Thursday.

But the committee agreed to discuss the measure so the idea can be explored further.

“This may lead us to looking at sentencing,” said Sen. Gordon Crow, R-Hayden, who is sponsoring the bill along with the Idaho Attorney General’s office. “The downside to looking at sentencing for this class of offenders is the lack of treatment that we’re getting in the prisons now.”

The legislation calls for civil, rather than criminal, commitment of habitual sexual offenders so they can receive treatment. Ideally, the sponsors hope some can be treated so they no longer are at risk of repeating their crimes. But in the meantime, they’d be locked up away from society.

“If we can help change a life, I’m very interested in this. That’s what we’re after,” said Sen. Grant Ipsen, R-Boise, chairman of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee.

But the legislation has raised concerns from county prosecutors about how the cases would be prosecuted; from the state Health and Welfare department about how the treatment would be handled; from mental health professionals in the field; from families of inmates; and from the state Correction Department about how the offenders would be housed.

It also has been challenged as potentially unconstitutional because of concerns about double jeopardy and adding new punishments for convicts who already have been sentenced.

“I am not here to say that this legislation is ready to go through,” Freeman Duncan, legislative liaison for the attorney general’s office, told the committee. “It’s an idea that needs to be studied.”

Sen. Denton Darrington, R-Declo, said he supported introducing the bill only so it can be heard and discussed as a starting point. “The bill will not proceed out of committee,” he said, adding that he wanted that guarantee “on the record.”

In addition to raising many questions about how the program would work in Idaho, the legislation carries a heavy price tag. Crow said the first offender to be committed under the law probably would cost the state $300,000 the first year, in part because special facilities would have to be opened and special treatment programs set up.

Offenders being held on civil commitments can’t legally be mixed with those serving time on criminal convictions, Duncan said.

Nine states, including Washington, now have civil commitment laws. The average cost per year to confine one inmate in those states, after the programs are up and running, is $65,000.

A committee hearing on the bill will be scheduled later in the session.

, DataTimes