NEW YORK
Adirondack Daily Enterprise

Editorial

Far too often, newspapers have to publish a police or court report involving someone who has sexually violated another person. The hardest stories to read are when the victim is a child.

Even scarier is the unknown but certainly vast number of abusers who are not arrested, who quietly get away with it — at least for the time being.

New York state has tough sentences for those who sexually abuse children, but clearly these penalties are not enough to deter some. We know that sometimes it can take years for young victims to process what happened to them. Under current law, the statute of limitations begins when the victim turns 18.

Under the Child Victims Act, approved in the state Assembly, in cases involving a felony sex crime against a minor that have a statute of limitations for criminal prosecution, the limitations…