Jindal seeks crackdown on sex crimes

• By PATRICK COURREGES
• Advocate Acadiana bureau
• Published: Mar 28, 2008 - Page: 11A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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LAFAYETTE — Gov. Bobby Jindal visited Lafayette on Thursday to announce his package of proposals for the upcoming legislative session to strengthen legal protections against sexual predators.

Jindal laid out what he wants to see done on that front, and in the area of workforce development, at a midday meeting of business leaders and elected officials from southwest Louisiana at the Louisiana Immersive Technologies Enterprise Center in Lafayette.

“I’m especially concerned that we do more to protect our children from crime,” he said.

Jindal said that the core of his plan will packages six bills designed to toughen penalties on convicted sex offenders in the state and help police make cases against sexual predators.

“Louisiana will be among the most aggressive states in the country in protecting out children from these monsters that seek to prey on them and their innocence,” he said. “If you are a sexual predator, you want to stay as far away from Louisiana and her children as you can.”

Jindal said he wants to require lifetime registration with the state for all sex offenders.

He also said he wants to see a doubling — from 1,000 feet to 2,000 feet — of the distance sexual predators are required to keep between themselves and such places as school property, school buses, day-care facilities, playgrounds, youth centers, public pools and parks and video arcades.

Jindal said he wants to increase the minimum sentence for those convicted of either computer-aided solicitation of a juvenile or molestation of a juvenile from 1 year to 5 years when victims are 13 years old or older, and to 10 years when victims are 12 years old and younger.

He said another proposal would close an existing loophole in Louisiana law that currently would allow sex offenders to persuade minors through online communication to meet or speak by phone, then attempt to entice them into sex.

Jindal said he wants to increase the time police have suspects put in jail from 60 days to 120 days, provided a judge authorizes the extension.

He said the change would give law enforcement agencies the ability to keep suspected violent criminals off the streets.

Jindal said that part of his proposed overall legislative package includes provisions to help keep companies in the state and attract new ones by providing a more skilled workforce.

One of those initiatives is tying funding of community- and technical-college programs to results and increasing funding for programs in high-tech or high-demand fields, he said.