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	Protecting Children: the Idea Is to Strengthen the Law Editorial The Union Leader [Manchester NH] March 19, 2006 http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Protecting+children%3A+The+ idea+is+to+strengthen+the+law&articleId=30152a81-de6d-4913-b166-b16f8dc3931c When It Comes to getting tough on child molesters, who would have thought that legislators would get cold feet? Last week, members of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee gutted the Child Protection Act by removing the bill's cornerstone punishment for child sex offenders. Currently, the maximum sentence for first offense aggravated felonious sexual assault against a child is 10 to 20 years. Offenders, however, can be let off with no prison time. Child abusers seldom serve the sorts of long sentences most people would consider just punishment for molesting children. The Child Protection Act originally mandated that judges impose a minimum 25-year sentence if prosecutors sought it. The bill's authors refrained from setting a mandatory 25-year minimum across the board because prosecutors said that would harm their ability to win convictions in some cases. Yet even with that compromise, members of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee removed the 25-year provision from the bill. If it is not restored, child sex offenders will continue to serve unjustly short terms before they are freed to prey on New Hampshire's children again. We always felt that this bill's primary flaw was that it lacked a mandatory minimum sentence for all child molesters. Now, if the House committee has its way, the bill won't even contain the possibility that the worst first-time molesters could face long minimum sentences. The committee also removed the provision that would have barred convicted child sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school, park or day care. We have heard from police officers who opposed that provision, saying it would do nothing to protect children and it would be a nightmare to enforce in cities like Manchester, where parks, playgrounds and schools are everywhere. But locking up the worst molesters for a quarter-century? That has strong support among law enforcement professionals, many of whom are quick to point out that pedophiles are seldom rehabilitated. Gov. John Lynch and Attorney General Kelly Ayotte are rightly worried that despite months of effort to craft a very tough bill, legislators might pass one that fails to force the worst child predators off the streets for any notable length of time. After New Hampshire's experience with the Catholic priest scandals and other sex abuse crimes, and the examples from other states where offenders ruined more lives after being released, it is simply astonishing that legislators might refuse prosecutors a tool to guarantee that the worst child sex offenders are put away for at least 25 years. It's not even a mandatory minimum sentence. It's a minimum sentence imposed on convicted child sex offenders only if prosecutors ask for it. That's hardly reckless overreaching. It's a sensible compromise. Legislators should see that it becomes law.
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