Last year the California legislature was very busy enacting new laws designed to prevent child abuse. The new laws that went into effect January 1, 2007, were designed to address some of the problems we have seen with the high profile cases over the past couple of years. However, the actual effectiveness of these new laws in preventing child abuse is questionable.

1. Employment restrictions on registered sex offenders An amendment to Penal Code Section 290.95 requires disclosure of sex offender status when the person would be working in an accompanied setting and the work would require touching the children "on more then an incidental and occasional basis."

In addition, Penal Code Section 290.95(c) was amended to add that someone convicted of a crime against a child under 16 may not work as an employer or an independent contractor in a setting that involves direct, unaccompanied contact with minors "on more than an incidental and occasional basis."

Comments: These new laws are not likely to deter child molesters from obtaining jobs that require them to touch children. After all, child molesters are very manipulative and are known to go to great lengths to fulfill their fantasies. Remember John Mark Karr, the strange man who the police suspected may have killed Jon Benet Ramsey? After being charged with child pornography, Mr. Karr reportedly fled the jurisdiction to take on multiple teaching assignments with various schools. Would this new legislation have had any impact on Mr. Karr's behavior?

2. Confidential settlement agreements in civil actions based on sex offenses. Civil Code of Procedure, Section 1002 was added to our law, which precludes confidential settlement agreements in civil cases based on actions that could be prosecuted as felony sex offenses.

However, the new statute does not affect the ability of the parties to enter into an agreement barring disclosure of the amount of money paid in a settlement, nor does it preclude an agreement to keep the defendant from disclosing medical or identifying information about the victim.

Comments: The Michael Jackson civil case must have been in the minds of the legislators who created this new law. Unfortunately, it is difficult to imagine how this new law will deter individuals from preying on children or assist the District Attorney's office in prosecuting child molestation cases. In most settlement agreements that I am familiar with, the defendant does not make admissions of wrongdoing. Thus, preventing these settlement agreements from being confidential would appear to have no value to prosecutors.

3. Sex offenses against children Penal Code, Section 288.3 was added, which makes it a crime to arrange a meeting with a minor (or with someone the offender believes is a minor) for the purpose of lewd or lascivious behavior, or the exposure of either person's genital or rectal areas, if the perpetrator was "motivated by an unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in children." The punishment varies depending on prior convictions and whether the perpetrator actually went to the meeting.

Penal Code, Section 647.6 was amended to add that it is also a violation of the statute to engage in sexual conduct (as specified) with an adult if the perpetrator was motivated by sexual interest in children and believed that the adult was actually under 18; the amendment also raised the fine for violations, and added that the statute doesn't bar prosecution under any other law.

Penal Code, Section 269 was amended to change the definition for aggravated sexual assault of a child by narrowing the age difference between the perpetrator and the victim (seven rather then ten years) and adding certain violations; the amended statute requires a consecutive sentence for each conviction if the crimes involved separate victims or the same victim on separate occasions.

Finally, Penal Code, Section 288.7 was added, which imposes a prison sentence of 25 years to life for an adult who engages in sexual intercourse or sodomy with a child who is 10 years of age or younger; the statute imposes a 15-years-to-life sentence for oral copulation or sexual penetration (as defined) with such a child.

Comments: These new laws appear to be influenced by the MSNBC show, "To Catch A Predator," where child molesters are seen attempting to meet minors over the internet, and subsequently arrested in sting operations.

Obviously, these new laws will be very helpful to the police and prosecutors in obtaining convictions and keeping child molesters away from children once they are arrested.

However, none of the above-mentioned laws are proactive in nature. As we have seen on the "To Catch A Predator" shows, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to catch a child molester. Law enforcement is capable of capturing child molesters with little effort. Child molesters are compulsive and leave evidence of their crimes lying around within their homes and workplace. Indeed, because child molesters are so compulsive they are the easiest types of criminals to catch. Nevertheless, we are always hearing about cases where a child molester has molested scores of children before getting caught.

Obviously we are not committing enough money or manpower to go after these criminals before they offend. What we really need to attack this problem are more sting operations and an army of cops searching the internet for these offenders. After all, wouldn't our society benefit immensely if there was a significant reduction of child molesters roaming our streets?

Remember, it is always easy to pass tough new laws that punish perpetrators severely once they have been caught. But until our legislatures have passed new laws that create special task forces to arrest child molesters before they touch children, we are not seriously addressing this problem.