Legislative Watch

Repeat Adult Child Sex Offenders to Get Life

• Recently Passed Legislation

by Mark Green

According to a study by researchers at Emory University, the average adult child sex offender claims 380 victims in a lifetime. Nevertheless, the average child molester spends fewer than three years in prison, according to the KlaasKids Foundation – an organization founded by Marc Klaas following the murder of his 13-year-old daughter, Polly.

In July we won a significant battle toward changing those terrible figures when the U.S. House of Representatives passed my "Two Strikes, You're Out Child Protection Act." The bill is simple – it requires a life sentence for anyone who is convicted twice for committing sex crimes against children.

It's about time our criminal justice system realizes that every time a sexual predator reoffends, it destroys a child's life. These are people who don't steal cars or money, they steal something far more precious – the innocence of children. In my opinion, that's a crime worth a life sentence. In 1993 a little girl named Polly Klaas was kidnapped from her home in California and later killed by a sex offender – a sex offender with a terrifying history who had been released from prison after serving only half of another sentence. Since Polly Klaas's murder, her father Marc has fought a crusade to try and get the kind of people who murdered his daughter put away so they can't victimize any more children.

These kinds of crimes aren't limited to California, New York, and other large states – they're occurring in communities across the nation, and have happened right here in our own backyard. As the murders of Cora Jones and Lisa French prove, Wisconsin is not immune from these horrible crimes.

As a father of three kids myself, I can only begin to imagine the anger and agony people like Marc Klaas have gone through. Over the last few years, he and I have become good friends — working together to pass tough new laws to protect our children. In fact, three years ago I authored a "Two Strikes, You're Out" bill similar to this one in Wisconsin. In 1998 Gov. Thompson signed that bill into law, helping to prevent Wisconsin kids from suffering the same fate as Polly Klaas.

But on the national level, no such law exists. That's why I introduced a federal version last year. It requires mandatory life sentences for any second-offense sex crime against a child that occurs in a federal jurisdiction. If an offender is convicted of any previous sex crime against a child – whether in a state or federal jurisdiction – then commits a federal child sex crime, the offender will spend the rest of his or her life in jail. Covered federal sex crimes include sexual abuse, aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse of a minor or ward, abusive sexual contact, sexual abuse resulting in death, selling or buying children, and transporting minors for illicit purposes.

This bill will become more useful as sexual predators increasingly use the Internet to find their prey. Already, child molesters have gone from state to state to stalk their targets – often meeting them on the Internet and traveling across state lines in hopes of seizing children. Many of these criminals could be prosecuted under my federal bill. I believe that for these individuals, prison is the only thing that will keep them from preying on other young people. This won't be a cure-all, but it's a big step forward in our national fight against the terrifying sex offenders who prey on our kids.

Wisconsin Lawyer