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  Sex Abuse Answers Needed

Reno Gazette-Journal [Nevada]
August 8, 2005

What can be done to ensure that sexual offenders don't have the chance to create new victims?

Answering that long-standing, extremely difficult question has become critical in recent months as a series of high-profile cases around the nation — including a kidnapping in Fernley — has raised new concerns about our ability to protect ourselves and, more important, our children from sexual predators.

That's why a summit planned by area law enforcement agencies in October is so important. Meeting in Reno, the groups hope to discuss what is and isn't working and to brainstorm ideas for making the system better. It's a worthwhile undertaking. Everyone should hope that they can develop workable strategies for dealing with this tough, increasingly troubling problem.

For many, the answer is simple: One strike and you're out.

In that view, sexual offenders simply are too dangerous and we don't understand them well enough to allow them out on the street again; not only are they likely to offend again, but their offenses are likely to be worse each time. They can't be cured, it's said, and even the experts can't reliably tell us which ones are dangerous and which aren't.

The current system in Nevada goes in the opposite direction. It rates each sexual offender on the likelihood that he (or she) will commit another sexual crime based on numerous factors, including the severity of his offense. That rating determines how they're to be handled — whether neighbors are to be notified when they move into a neighborhood, for instance — and how they're to be monitored.

Yet, even if the rating is correct, the ability of law-enforcement agencies to monitor their activities is limited. In Nevada alone, the Department of Public Safety says, for example, that there are 1,476 offenders in the state who haven't complied with the annual verification process or are required to register their addresses but haven't. That leaves the entire monitoring process in doubt. And that's why in too many cases the public has taken matters into their own hands, in some cases forcing offenders out of their neighborhoods and even becoming violent.

What's clear is that we simply must do a better job. It must be more difficult for a sexual offender to avoid being monitored. That means that the consequences for failing to register must be increased, and, to ensure that they have fewer opportunities to escape detection, law enforcement agencies must have the money they need to keep an eye on dangerous offenders. And prosecutors and the courts must take even seemingly minor sexual offenses more seriously, especially when the victims are children; plea bargains should not ease the requirements on an offender, and no offender should be allowed to be in the presence of youngsters.

As was clearly demonstrated in Florida earlier this year, the consequences of the system's failures can be tragic. There two young girls were kidnapped by known offenders and were killed. The Fernley case fortunately had a happy ending. All reinforce the need for us to do what's necessary to protect children from harm. We can't afford more failures.