Here’s how Idahoans are working to keep sexual predators off the streets
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IDAHO FALLS — Harsher sentences for sex crimes in Idaho are needed. That’s the sentiment behind a growing number of protests, rallies, and petitions occurring in eastern Idaho over the last couple of months.
One of the organizers of the events, Bentley Hill, says she feels called to raise awareness about lax sentencing, having been a victim of a sex crime at a young age.
“As a child, I was abused in ways I’ll never be able to forget. No amount of therapy or anything will erase it from my mind, so it’s always been a very serious problem to me,” says Hill. “But I have healed in ways where I can help others, and maybe make a difference.”
Hill says she’s been following along with local cases of pedophilia and sex crimes in the news and decided to do some research.
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“Every day, a new sex crime was being posted with one to three years of prison or just probation being the punishment and a name on the registry, which is nothing compared to the hurt and pain the victims and their families will feel forever,” says Hill. “So I started doing research on how I, as a citizen of the community, can work towards changing these laws or making a change, and a petition was the first thing that popped up.”
Her online petition has reached over 4,100 signatures as of Tuesday. It calls for three changes to Idaho sex crime punishments and proceedings:
- “A five-year mandatory minimum sentence for rape crimes.”
- “A change to Idaho’s Criminal Rule 11. Pleas. Section (f) (1) (A) in regard to sexual offense. No move for dismissal of other charges.”
- “If a parent is a registered sex offender, there is a strong presumption against granting them custody of a child, meaning the court will generally not award custody unless it is proven beyond doubt that the child would not be at risk; this is based on the ‘best interests of the child’ standard, and the sex offender parent would need to demonstrate significant evidence to overcome this presumption.” (The group hopes to make it more difficult for registered sex offenders to have custody over their children.)
(The group hopes to keep prosecutors from being able to drop charges as part of the negotiations to get a case settled using a plea agreement.)
In early March, Hill and others organized an event at the Bonneville County Courthouse, where 25 to 30 locals met to express their thoughts on the issue.
Tim Sopalski, a local activist, told EastIdahoNews.com at the time that he was working on a bill to be introduced into the Legislature for the state to have a minimum of five years in prison for a person convicted of a sex crime.
The group is planning another rally on April 26 at 2 p.m. on the Broadway Bridge. This event is titled the “Protect our Children Rally,” which Hill says aims to convince the Legislature that more needs to be done to protect constituents and their children from sexual predators.
Hill says they hope to gain enough attention with their petition that Gov. Brad Little will take notice and support their mission.
“It’s time to take a stand. If we don’t take a stand, it’s only going to get worse from here,” says Hill. “Everybody should be sharing the petition if they believe their children should be safer. The laws are not justifying the victims.”
On the other side of the state, some legislators are also trying to encourage harsher sentencing requirements for sex offenders.
Rep. Bruce Skaug, R-Nampa, is co-sponsoring House Bill 380, which would allow the death penalty as a potential sentence for adults who sexually abuse children age 12 and under, if their case includes at least three aggravating factors.
The bill unanimously passed the Idaho Legislature, and is now awaiting Little’s decision to sign, veto, or allow it to pass without his approval.
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Skaug told EastIdahoNews.com that he feels it’s necessary to toughen the punishments for sexual predators as the current sentencing recommendations do not remind him of “the Idaho I grew up in.”
“As a former prosecutor long ago and seeing what’s happening across our state, I realized we have some of the most lenient sentencing guidelines for child molesters and for child rape. And that’s not right. Not by the Idaho I grew up in,” says Skaug. “So we brought this bill that’s gone through on a bipartisan level with both Democrats and Republicans voting for it.”
As for why previous and similar bills haven’t been able to pass, Skaug says they were poorly written, and believes this bill has the potential to become law.
“We as a state seem willing to do this bipartisan because of the wickedness and absolute evil of what happens,” says Skaug. “There are some things that are worse than death. We execute for first-degree murder now, but it’s worse than death to destroy a child.”
Skaug speculates that sex crimes are more prevalent these days because of the “deterioration of the family.”
“The underlying social problem is the deterioration of the family. One woman, one man, stay married, have kids after you get married,” says Skaug. “That’s deteriorated everywhere in our state.”
Others disagree, and say there are many other reasons for the increase in sex crimes in the area.
Bonneville County Prosecutor Randy Neal says part of the reason there seems so be so many sex crime cases is because of the continuing backlog due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in which criminals were not being arrested due to concerns over spreading the sickness within the jails.
“(During) COVID, they weren’t putting anybody in prison, period,” says Neal. “Nobody was going to jail or prison because they didn’t want to have this issue with spreading (COVID-19).”
Another reason for the increase, according to Neal, is that society has become more comfortable with and supportive of victims of sexual abuse and the importance of reporting these types of crimes – resulting in more people coming forward.
“We’re seeing the conversation much more broadly among this generation, and that has got to be related to the ability for peers to support each other on social media platforms,” says Neal. “Some of it is just high-profile cases where people start a conversation, and then suddenly, people think, ‘Well, that applied to me.'”
According to Neal, although there is an increase in cases on the desk of many prosecutors, much of it is due to the new societal push to encourage victims to report abuse.
“I think the victims are getting support where they may have been absolutely shamed in former generations, and they may have perceived themselves as being partially to blame. We’re seeing a lot more understanding,” says Neal. “I think that’s kind of the key to why we’re getting involved a lot more often, and we’re getting public prosecutions as opposed to where it may have been a family secret that would’ve been hidden forever.”
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