So take the current year, 2005. Add one to it, because it will take close to a year to convict anyone who molests a child under the new law. Then add 20, because that's at least how long it will be before the first offender convicted of sexual offenses against a child under age 12 will be released from prison.

What you get is 2026, the year that the first offender who will be required under the new law to be subject to electronic monitoring will leave prison.

Supporters of the new law point out that the ankle bracelets necessary for the electronic monitoring of child sex offenders can be used for those offenders who are released from prison early by the state parole system. But that was true even before the new law passed. The problem there is that the Board of Pardons and Paroles is overstressed already, and it has no funds currently available to make the monitoring a reality.

Don't misunderstand our point. The new law is a good one. It toughens penalties for child sexual abuse and for abusers not reporting and updating their addresses after they leave prison. Even the electronic monitoring may eventually prove effective.

The problem is not what the new law does, but what it doesn't do.

It doesn't do anything to increase the manpower of local police and sheriff's departments.

A recent spot check of the current registry of sex offenders by the Birmingham News found that 40 percent did not live at the addresses they had listed. Unless local law enforcement agencies are given the funding to add manpower to check up on these offenders, or unless there is some other incentive by the state push local law enforcement to do so, we suspect that there will continue to be problems with the reporting system.

It does not provide funding for additional manpower for parole officers, who already have a much larger case load than they should have.

It doesn't provide funding for treatment programs in the state's prisons designed to keep child sexual offenders from offending again.

Many of these treatment programs have proved to be of limited effectiveness, but Alabama should look closely at what treatment programs have worked in other states and at least consider implementing them here.

The headlines of recent months have made it clear that the nation has a problem with former child sexual offenders committing new crimes against children after they leave prison. The Alabama Legislature, the attorney general and the governor are to be congratulated for increasing the penalties for child sexual predators.

But that's only part of the equation. Two other parts treatment and enforcement will require spending money on the treatment programs for offenders before they leave prison and on more law enforcement and parole officers to monitor them after they leave.

Again, the problem is not with the new law; it should help. But if the state's elected officials want to protect children from those sex offenders who are released over the next 20 years, they need to show it with some bigger numbers in the budgets they approve.

Back to News