Tougher laws keep sex offenders behind bars

SALT LAKE CITY — In 1983, when Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, then a state representative, pushed through a bill imposing tougher sex-offender laws, it was a different era.

"I was convinced at the time that society had not really looked at sexual abuse," Hillyard said. "There were things going on, even within families, that nobody dared talk about."

And while 1996 legislation, also proposed by Hillyard, eliminated mandatory minimum sentences and widened options for prosecutors and judges, Utah still has one of the country's toughest stances on sex crime — with the prison population to show for it.

That's why it's unlikely a program like the one upheld Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court to indefinitely hold the most dangerous sex offenders after their prison terms, will come to the state anytime soon.

The court held that the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, signed in 2006 by President George W. Bush, was a proper exercise of federal authority. The four men who challenged the law were held after serving prison terms from three to eight years for possession of child pornography or sexual abuse of a minor.

The law only affects federal inmates, although 20 states have similar civil commitment programs.

Hillyard said such a program would be too expensive in Utah. Indeed, officials are already struggling to house and treat the sex offenders who make up 30 percent of the state's prison population — well above the national average of 12 percent.

The number of sex offenders in the Utah State Prison jumped from 864 in 1996 to 1,967 in 2008. Meanwhile, prison funding remained static.

"Programs are spread thinner across a higher number of inmates," said Utah Department of Corrections spokesman Steve Gehrke. "That means some inmates end up waiting a while before they get into treatment programs. You have a small number of staff pressed to do more."

The prison's Diagnostic Unit, a wing where new inmates underwent a roughly 45-day pre-sentencing evaluation, closed last year for lack of funds. Now, though Gehrke says other methods provide much of the same information, offenders who could have received probation end up in prison instead.

Changes in state law in 1996 replaced mandatory minimum sentences for many sex crimes with indeterminate terms of six, 10 or 15 years to life. At the same time, many attempted sexual assaults became more-serious first-degree felonies, with the possibility of probation or prison sentences as short as three years.