BOSTON—Lawmakers are weighing dozens of bills designed to toughen restrictions on sex offenders -- from forcing offenders to register e-mail addresses and online names with the state to barring them from driving school buses and ice cream trucks.
Tuesday's Statehouse hearing comes less than a month after a high-level sex offender was arrested and charged with raping a 6-year-old boy at the public library in New Bedford.
One of the bills would create mandatory sentences for sex offenders who assault children under 12.
Supporters have dubbed the bill "Jessica's Law," for a 9-year-old Florida girl who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a convicted sex offender in 2005. After the killing, Florida set a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years to life for certain sex offenses against children.
Representative Karyn Polito, R-Shrewsbury, said a similar law is needed in Massachusetts, particularly for those who assault young children.
Other bills would:
-- Let prosecutors ask for a jury trial when they request to have a convicted sex offender held beyond their original sentence;
-- Expand the use of GPS electronic monitoring devices for sex offenders who have been released from prison;
-- Offer sex offenders the option to agree to so-called "chemical castration" to inhibit or eliminate violent impulses;
-- Prohibit sex offenders from taking a job within 1,000 feet of a school, day care center or child care facility.
The filing of dozens of sex offender bills has become a regular ritual on Beacon Hill. Interest in Tuesday's Judiciary Committee hearing was heightened by recent incidents, including the alleged assault in New Bedford.
Corey Saunders, 26, was arrested Jan. 30 after allegedly assaulting the boy in a second-floor magazine room, police said.
Saunders, who had recently moved to New Bedford, is charged with rape of a child by force, indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. Saunders was convicted in 2001 of child rape and assault and battery on a child.
Last week another so-called "Level 3" sex offender -- considered the most likely to re-offend -- was arrested for allegedly peeping at a woman under a restroom stall at a retail store in Quincy.
David Flavell had been released from a treatment center in February 2006 after Superior Court Judge Richard Moses found he was not sexually dangerous.
Moses reached a similar conclusion in the case of Corey Saunders -- prompting criticism that he is too lenient.
Some critics say the harshest restrictions are so tough they could force sex offenders underground and make them more likely to assault again.
William Leahy, chief counsel at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, urged the committee to adopt a "rational and comprehensive approach" when recommending sex-offender related legislation to the full House and Senate.
Norma Shapiro, legislative director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said laws that are too tough can be counterproductive and put children and others at greater risk.
"Sex offenders need treatment, sex offenders need ongoing counseling and they need to live in a secure, quiet environment," she said. "When we make it harder for them to get to work and perform their daily functions and put them under intense pressure, they are more likely to re-offend."
But supporters of the tougher measures say the first concern should be the safety of the state's children.
Debbie Savoia, a mother of two in North Andover, said it's getting so bad that no place feels safe for children.
"When do these children have the right not to be raped in the library?" Savoia told the committee. "It's getting to the point that we are going to have to lock up our children so the sex offenders can go free."
On Wednesday, state Rep. Peter Koutoujian, Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone and Worcester District Attorney Joe Early are scheduled to detail legislation they say will close a loophole in state law about rape committed using fraud or deceit.
The state can prosecute rape cases based on force or non-consent, but a recent Supreme Judicial Court finding recommended lawmakers close the fraud and deceit loophole, which supporters say recognizes rape is not only about force, but the lack of true consent.
