Senate passes sex offender bill

BOISE – The Senate unanimously approved a bill Wednesday that increases penalties for certain serious crimes such as sexual abuse of a child under age 16 and battery with the intent to commit a serious felony.

Senate Bill 1312 also requires violent sexual predators to verify their street addresses every month instead of every 90 days.

The legislation “is not a panacea,” but it’s a good step, said Sen. Denton Darrington, the sponsor and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Increasing maximum sentences for certain crimes means those offenders also will be supervised for longer after they’re released, said Darrington, R-Declo.

And by increasing the number of times a sheriff must verify a violent sexual predator’s address, law enforcement agencies have more opportunities to detect wrongdoing, he said.

“There’s a lot of things they can see and sense through that visit,” he said.

Thirty-two violent sexual predators live in Idaho, but only three are now supervised through parole or probation.

Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, another sponsor of the bill, said sex offenders are a statewide problem.

“We suffered a huge black eye (last) summer, and it was through no fault of our own,” Goedde said, referring to two high-profile crimes in North Idaho: the Groene family slayings and kidnapping in Coeur d’Alene, and the kidnapping and rape of a 12-year-old girl in Shoshone County by the girl’s father, a registered sex offender.

“The fact is that sex offenders are everywhere in this state,” Goedde said.

Darrington said that, ideally, supervision for violent sexual predators would be much more vigilant.

“What would be nice to be able to do would be to be able to keep all VSPs under the thumb of the state for the rest of their life,” Darrington said.

But he said the Constitution prohibits double jeopardy, or being tried twice on the same charge, and lawmakers haven’t figured out how to craft a law requiring lifetime supervision that wouldn’t trump that protection.

Darrington said the best and most often ignored way of avoiding problems with sex offenders is to help potential offenders deal with their temptations.

“Go see somebody; talk about it; get it out,” Darrington said. “Get off Internet sex, which is one of the great curses that we’re faced with today.”