`CHEMICAL CASTRATION' BILL PASSES.

Byline: Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

Pursuing the war on sex crimes, the Legislature gave final approval Friday to a bill requiring repeat child molesters to undergo periodic injections of a hormone designed to reduce their sexual drives.

Although similar legislation has been proposed in several other states, California is the first state to approve the procedure, which has been referred to as ``chemical castration.''

On the next-to-last day of the two-year session, the Assembly unanimously approved another measure intended to prevent sex crimes by establishing a new computer tracking system and authorizing police to notify residents when convicted sexual offenders move into their neighborhoods. The bill would implement federal legislation known as ``Megan's Law.''

Assemblywoman Barbara Alby, R-Fair Oaks, who carried the legislation, said the public is fed up with sexual offenders and wants to increase penalties for them and be briefed on their whereabouts.

``They have an attitude that is much more aggressive than this Legislature,'' Alby said. ``The scarlet letter (resulting from notification) is compassionate compared to what the public would like to do.''

On the chemical treatment bill, the Assembly voted 51-8 to concur in minor amendments forged in the Senate, with nine Democrats joining all 41 Republicans and a Reform Party lawmaker to pass the measure.

Gov. Pete Wilson, decrying the ``unwholesome instinct that causes someone to molest a child,'' has promised to sign the bill, which has received international media attention in recent days.

Under the bill, AB 3339, a person convicted of any one of four specified crimes against a child under 13 could be ordered by a judge to undergo weekly injections of Depo-Provera - a hormone that lowers testosterone levels. After a second conviction, the treatment would be required.

The treatment would extend throughout an offender's period of parole, which is three years for all the sex crimes cited in the bill - sodomy, lewd and lascivious act with a child, oral copulation and sexual penetration with a foreign object. Offenders who wish to escape the hormone treatments could opt for surgical castration instead.

Proponents have pointed to studies from European nations showing that hormone treatments have reduced the recidivism rate for sexual offenders from 90 percent to as low as 2 percent.

``We are trying to get these heinous criminals and their activities to the lowest rate we can,'' said Assemblyman Bill Hoge, R-Pasadena, who authored the bill. ``We won't be 100 percent perfect, but we will reduce the rate (significantly). Isn't that what we want to do?''

But some Democrats argued that the treatment would be ineffective on offenders who are not willing to change their behavior. ``A person who is castrated is still able to molest a child,'' said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica. ``This bill would create a false sense of safety.''

Assemblywoman Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, who said she ran a mental health clinic, said drug therapy must be accompanied by counseling to be effective. ``Let's not embark on a horrifying course that is a breach of humanity,'' Migden said.

The state version of Megan's Law, AB 1562, would apply to all sexual offenders, not just child molesters.

The bill would set up a three-tier program. Under the first tier, the names of all registered sex offenders in the state would be provided to local law enforcement agencies so that the public could check on suspicious persons free of charge. That service is now available through a hotline for a fee.

Under the second tier, police would have the authority to notify schools and other institutions of convicted sexual offenders in their area. And under the third tier, police could canvass neighborhoods and alert residents when a potentially dangerous sex offender has taken up residence near them.

The Senate sent Gov. Pete Wilson major legislation to create a state-run authority that would take over the job of providing earthquake insurance to California homeowners.

The new California Earthquake Authority was approved by a 28-6 vote. The measure previously had been approved by the Assembly.

Wilson spokesman Sean Walsh said the governor plans to sign the legislation. ``We need this bill so Californians can continue to buy and sell their homes,'' Walsh said.

Backers of the earthquake authority, including Insurance Commissioner Charles Quackenbush, say it is needed to resolve a crisis gripping the state's homeowner insurance market after the costly 1994 Northridge Quake.

The sweeping insurance plan, however, generated long debate in the Senate, where supporters called it the best deal possible for homeowners, but critics labeled it as an overly generous bailout for private insurance firms.

``We have come up short. . . . This is essentially an insurers' protection act,'' said one leading critic of the earthquake authority, Sen. Herschel Rosenthal, D-Van Nuys.

``I predict this will be the biggest bailout since the savings and loan crisis,'' added Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles.

But Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer, D-Hayward, told senators that the final earthquake authority proposal requires a greater financial commitment from private insurers as well as better scientific research to be used in setting rates.

Lockyer reminded senators that his home - and many of his constituents' homes - are directly on or near the Hayward Fault. ``The alternate course of doing nothing is simply too risky,'' Lockyer said.

Insurance companies would provide seed money and other financial backing for the authority and policyholders would pay premiums based on where they live.

Quackenbush said that, barring unforeseen complications, ``I am confident that the CEA (the earthquake authority) will be up and running by Dec. 1.''

The Senate rejected a bid by Senate Republican leader Rob Hurtt of Garden Grove to revive his bill to counter the effects of a recent state Supreme Court decision that he said substantially weakened the ``three strikes, you're out'' sentencing law.

The 21-16 vote appeared to be the last chance the Legislature will have this year to counter the court's ruling that the new law improperly took away the discretion of judges to impose a lesser penalty in cases in which they believe 25 years to life is too harsh a penalty for a third conviction.

The Assembly on Friday approved a complex plan to open California's $20 billion electricity market to competition - a measure that in theory would eventually allow Californians to shop around for power as they now do for long distance phone service.

The measure sailed through the Assembly on a 71-0 vote. If it passes the state Senate and is signed by the governor as expected, the electricity restructuring plan will be one of the more far-reaching measures enacted into law this year.

As of Friday evening, the Senate still had not voted on the electricity deregulation plan approved earlier by the Assembly. Under that blueprint, California's electricity market would start opening to competition in January 1998. Consumers who buy their electricity from private utilities, such as Pacific Gas & Electric Co., are promised a 10 percent immediate rate decrease and another 10 percent reduction by 2002.