Idaho sex offender policies under review

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His case is not unusual. The parole commission regularly releases people just like him.

Stowell, 36, was convicted on two counts of sexual abuse of a child under 16. He originally served 150 days and went to prison in 2005 only after violating the terms of his probation by being around children and watching Internet pornography.

Stowell was arrested again this month, just a few weeks after his release, for a parole violation.

On average, the Idaho Department of Correction says convicts serve three years for Stowell’s crime. Also not unusual, was the sentence handed down by 7th District Judge Richard St. Clair in Stowell’s case.

The average ‘‘fixed’’ time for someone convicted of abusing a child under 16 is 2.8 years.

Stowell’s ‘‘fixed’’ sentence — the time he had to serve in prison — was two years. The average ‘‘indeterminate’’ time — when an inmate is eligible for parole — for this crime is 10.6 years. St. Clair gave Stowell 14 years.

While the notoriety of Stowell’s case brought attention to his release, other sex offenders have been granted parole dates as well during the past six months.

Fred Willie was originally charged with nine counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor in Bear Lake County, in what Idaho prosecutors and judges said they considered to be the worst sex crime on the books.

Willie was granted a release date on Jan. 11 after serving about 21⁄2 years in prison.

From Jan. 7 to Jan. 17, the commission granted parole dates to 13 sex offenders. Commissioners saw offenders with crimes that ranged from statutory rape to lewd conduct, from young people making poor decisions to the worst kind of predatory behavior. This range is part of what makes sex offenders so difficult to categorize.

‘‘Not all sex offenders are equally at risk (of re-offending),’’ said Dr. Mary Perrien, chief of education and treatment for the Idaho Department of Correction.

Jefferson County farmer Del Ray Holm spent 24 years deciding people’s fate on the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole and sex offenders, he said, were the most difficult cases to decide.

In many instances, Holm said, commissioners can look at an inmate’s prison record to see whether he or she should be considered for release. Has the inmate been in trouble? Started fights? Followed orders?

But sex offenders, Holm said, are tricky.

Stowell was able to manipulate parents, Boy Scout leaders and the hierarchy of the Mormon Church. It’s not surprising, then, that he would emerge from prison with a clean record.

‘‘They’re good inmates,’’ Holm said. ‘‘They always do what they’re supposed to.’’

Still, Moore, a member of the current parole commission, considers good behavior in prison as ‘‘powerful evidence to us that they’re really trying.’’

Moore said he looks for ‘‘absolute candor’’ from a pedophile requesting release from prison. He said he wants to see that the inmate has not only admitted guilt but also understands the impact his crime had on victims. Also important, Moore said, is that the inmates have a plan for living in society.

Some, however, believe that molesters should never be released.

Dr. Judith Reisman is president of the Institute for Media Education, a nonprofit research agency that has closely examined pedophiles and whether they can be treated. She takes a hard line on parole commissioners who decide the Brad Stowells of the world should be released.

‘‘I argue for third party damage for all parole boards,’’ Reisman wrote to the Post Register in an e-mail. ‘‘Every criminal they release they have to sign for. The criminal commits the crime, they do the same amount of prison time.’’

Certainly, the bar is higher for sex offenders than other inmates.

Last year, the Idaho Commission of Pardons and Parole granted release dates to 68 percent of the inmates who requested release. The percentages appear much lower for sex offenders. From Feb. 11 to Feb. 28, the commission heard 274 cases. Of those, 19 were sex offenders. Fifteen percent were granted release dates.

From Jan. 7-17, commissioners heard 374 cases. Fifty-two of those were sex offenders. Twenty-five percent were granted release dates. The reason 20 percent of Idaho’s prison population consists of sex offenders, Holm said, is that commissioners are reluctant to parole pedophiles.

And that, according to Holm, leads to another set of problems.

A paroled sex offender remains under the thumb of law enforcement, even while in the community. Stowell was jailed this month for parole violations that included owning a computer and not getting a job. But when a pedophile serves his entire sentence, he is released with no supervision.

‘‘Then you’ve got no control at all,’’ Holm said.

More than 30 states have passed some form of Jessica’s Law, which mandates a sentence of 25 years to life for certain sex offenses against children.

Paul Steed, whose sons, Adam and Ben, were among those Stowell admitted to molesting at an eastern Idaho Boy Scouts camp, plans to work with legislators to ensure Idaho enacts a version of Jessica’s Law. Steed advocates tightening Idaho child abuse laws and helped convince lawmakers to eliminate the statute of limitation on child sexual abuse two years ago.

‘‘Idaho is definitely behind most states, and we need to change that,’’ Steed said.

He also wants see Idaho initiate better treatment programs before releasing pedophiles.

Senate Majority Leader Bart Davis, a Republican from Idaho Falls, said he doesn’t know whether that’s the answer to the question of what to do with sex offenders in Idaho. But events in the past year have convinced him that something needs to be done.

‘‘We have to get some minimum-mandatory sentencing standards,’’ Davis said.

Currently, Idaho has more than 1,400 sex offenders in the prison system. Tougher laws mean more prisoners, which equates to higher costs. ‘‘We can’t deal with them,’’ Holm said. ‘‘We’ve got too many of them.’’

And it’s not just sentencing. Davis said he believes the entire system may need an overhaul and the Legislature needs to ensure victims are notified when their perpetrator’s parole hearing is scheduled, which didn’t happen in the Stowell case. Idaho may need to look at a tiered sex offender classification system, Davis said, a way to rank offenders in the order of who should be a candidate for release and who should not.

Davis said a lack of evidence that sex offenders can be effectively treated has convinced him Idaho needs to ‘‘err on the side of protecting our children’’ when it comes to parole.

Holm, a longtime member of the parole board, also acknowledged that treatment for offenders can only do so much.

‘‘You’re not going to cure him,’’ Holm said.

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Information from: Post Register, http://www.postregister.com