IF EVER RELEASED, SEX OFFENDERS NEED TRACKING.

Byline: BRIDGET JOHNSON

NOBODY wants to find himself in the position of Mark Lunsford, unwittingly cast in the role of legislative champion after his daughter, Jessica, was slain last February in Florida, allegedly by a registered sex offender. In her memory, Lunsford advocates for the passage of ``Jessica's Law'' across the country - an effort that failed in California earlier this month when state Assembly and Senate committees effectively killed the legislation.

The bill, introduced by Assemblywoman Sharon Runner and state Sen. George Runner, both Lancaster Republicans, would have required registered sex offenders to be tracked by Global Positioning System satellites for life (and pay for it) and prohibited them from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park. It also would have toughened penalties and closed loopholes in current sex-crimes law.

The timing of the legislation's demise couldn't have been worse. The recent controversy over a Vermont judge who handed down a minimum 60-day sentence to a convicted child rapist has raised important questions about the management of sex offenders - and recidivism risk.

A 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics report tracking 9,691 sex offenders after they were released from state prisons in 1994 found that they were four times more likely than those not convicted of such offenses to commit a sex crime.

Eight years was their average sentence, and, on average, the offenders only served 3 1/2 years of that.

Vermont Judge Edward Cashman said he imposed the short sentence so Mark Hulett, who victimized a girl over a four-year period beginning when she was age 6, could quickly receive treatment. The state offered Hulett treatment in prison, and the controversy had reached boiling point by the time Cashman finally lengthened his sentence Thursday.

In research on the efficacy of treatment for sex offenders, the statistics vary widely considering the myriad offenders lumped into studies - rapists, perpetrators of incest, molesters, exhibitionists - and the type of treatment administered, which can range from therapy to chemical castration.

But whereas rehab programs for a two-bit criminal can head off future offenses with job or life-skills training, the sex offender essentially has to be rewired. This offender is not suffering from a momentary lapse of judgment, like stealing beer from the 7-Eleven.

Cashman said Hulett's sentence was also influenced by testing that showed Hulett had the emotional maturity of a 12- to 14-year-old and didn't comprehend the gravity of his actions.

So why would a treatment program work, as opposed to institutionalization? And who in our communities is going to be the guinea pig, the test case for whether or not that treatment has worked?

A 2001 report from the U.S. Department of Justice's Center for Sex Offender Management included an especially frightening conclusion from a 2000 study: ``Polygraph examinations on a sample of imprisoned sex offenders with fewer than two known victims (on average) found that these offenders actually had an average of 110 victims and 318 offenses.'' Another polygraph study in 1999 found that a sample of imprisoned sex offenders had been committing sex crimes for 16 years on average before getting caught.

This fresh debate over sex-offender sentencing also brings up important questions about the purpose of incarceration. The catchphrase ``paying one's debt to society'' sounds nice but holds little weight with citizens who are more concerned about what threat the debt-payer will be to their communities.

Incarceration is often seen in terms of punishment or rehabilitation. But for treatment to work, the offender has to want to be rehabilitated - beyond just desiring parole. To assume this is usually the case is to fantasize a corrections utopia, particularly when dealing with criminals driven by sexual urges and incapable of feeling empathy for victims.

The DOJ's Center for Sex Offender Management noted in a 2001 report that ``recidivists tended to see themselves as being at little risk for committing new offenses.''

Hence, we should also weigh the role incarceration plays in protecting society from dangerous elements. The prison system is not a necessary evil, but necessary because of evil.

It's this philosophy of keeping the bad ones locked up tight to keep everyone else safer that is pushing a petition around the state to get ``Jessica's Law'' on the ballot. And it's that same sentiment that will drive the measure to victory, as the people drown out the bill-killing committees.