Political posturing?

Others go to the core of the KIDS Act, claiming the mistake is in requiring convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses.

One such advocate is the Reverend C. David Hess, the New York State Representative of SOhopeful International, an organization that "is working with families, citizens and professionals to change the way legislation mandates the registration, tracking and community notification of non-violent, low-risk sex offenders."

Hess's main point is that most sex offenders are capable of changing their ways, but that laws like the KIDS Act prevent it from happening.

He cites a study from the State of New York Department of Correctional Services, which set sex offender recidivism at 2.1 percent. A 1994 U.S. Department of Justice study puts the number at 3.5 percent.

By way of comparison, the New York study reports that, of those who committed robbery and were released from prison between 1985 and 2001, 6.5 percent returned to prison for another robbery.

Hess said the reason sex offender recidivism is so low is the crimes are caused by a disease, which he argues can be cured in a stable environment. But he said the KIDS Act and other such laws rob sex offenders of such an environment.

"Corrections experts will say that the most important thing to prevent recidivism is stable employment, home, family and social support," Hess told InternetNews.com. "These laws are destructive to all of those things. Therefore, rather than making communities safer, they put people more at risk."

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The KIDS Act "isn't serious legislation or a serious attempt to address a real problem," he continued. "It's all political posturing."

Certainly, politicians on all levels pay attention to the issue. After her June appointment, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram's first order of business was to serve the Fox Interactive Media (FIM) company a subpoena for information on any accounts held by sex offenders.

She followed with another subpoena in July. Milgram's attentions stem from a mid-May letter signed by attorneys general from Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania asking for similar information.

A long list of states, including Kentucky, Virginia and Florida, have already signed bills similar to the KIDS Act into law.

An unfair net?

Michael Iacopino, co-chairman of the sex offender task force at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, is concerned that the KIDS Act too broadly lumps a diverse range of sex offenders into one category. He noted that some states consider public urination and streaking sex offenses.

He also argued that there should be a distinction between an 18-year-old who commits statuary rape with an underage boyfriend or girlfriend and child molesters.

"These bills paint everybody with the same brush and don't recognize that there's a large difference when it comes to people who have been convicted of sex crimes," Iacopino said.

He also echoed Hess's take on sex-offender recidivism. He said laws like the KIDS Act distract the public from actually solving the problem.

"Sex offenders as a group are one of the most treatable convicts in the country," Iacopino said.

"The way to deal with them is through treatment, not through mandatory sentences and exposing them to ridicule in society, making them live in leper colonies, and putting them away for more time after they've done their time. Those ideas come from a need to get elected than any real intelligent consideration of these offenses."

But there's a reason politicians are able to tap the public's fear. If there's an issue that's easy to get behind, it's one that would make the lives of the Paul Shorts out there less comfortable. Few get worked up in their defense.

But difficult as it might seem to protect the rights of men like Paul Short, who in the chat excerpted from above openly admitted he was "looking for a younger girl to train to be a slave," Iacopino, Hess and others are still convinced it's the right thing to do for the public good.

Still others, such as Finklehor, are less concerned with sex offenders and more interested in promoting science and education as a means to prevent child molestation.

But all those who either don't believe the KIDS Act solves problems or go further to actively fight it, share Iacopino's view in one regard.

"The problem is that most of this sex-offender legislation is based on the 'get tough' model instead of the 'get smart' model."

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