The following continues coverage of Friday night's proceedings from the House of Assembly The United Bermuda Party's Kim Young told the House of Assembly that while her party agreed with Government's new sex offender legislation, she wondered why MPs were debating the bill now "because we would need to have the specialists in place for it to work''.

Mrs. Young said offenders should be monitored all their life, not just for ten years, because sex offender treatment programmes only addressed a reduction in their behaviour and did not cure them.

"What was the basis for the ten year period?'' she asked.

"We agree with the Government that supervision is better than lengthy prison terms, but at the end of ten years they should be assessed,'' she continued.

"If the assessment shows that they have not curbed their behaviour then a further ten years should be added.'' Mrs. Young suggested that supervision after the ten year period could be "spaced out further''.

"Instead of perhaps every week it could be every month or every other month, a wider spacing,'' she said.

She added that the supervisors needed to have their authority increased so they could place sex offenders who were showing signs of lapsing in a psychiatric facility for intensive treatment.

The Shadow Minister for Health also questioned how the bill would affect released repeat sex offenders already in the community.

She called for it to be retroactive and to include both repeat and violent sexual offenders.

Mrs. Young also held that the implementation of a DNA register of sex offenders would go a long way to helping Police in their investigations and called on Ms Cox to commit to the implementation of a full treatment programme for sex offenders within the prison system.

Mrs. Young's view on the importance of the public and Police being notified of the release of sex offenders, was echoed strongly by her Opposition colleague Tim Smith .

Mr. Smith, a UBP MP for Paget West, said serious sexual assaults were second only to murder in seriousness.

He charged the Government with taking a weak approach and said the issue "deserves better action''.

Labelling the Government as "civil libertarians'' Mr. Smith said they were being lax "in doing what is necessary to protect the public''.

He called on the bill to be stronger in the area of notification to the public and held that sex offenders should be named in court reporting.

Currently the law does not allow the media to report the names of anyone charged with a sexual offence. Names can only be reported once a person has been found guilty but names can be withheld after conviction to protect the identity of the victim.

Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson hailed the legislation as "revolutionary'' and called on the Opposition to make helpful suggestions.

"If they took the time to put their minds to it, they could give us suggestions to make the legislation stronger,'' he said.

"This is the most forward bit of legislation we have ever got in this Country,'' he continued.

"It does not mean that we are soft on crime. We have gone further than any Government in dealing with crime.'' Mr. Hodgson said it was shameful that the former Government had not collected any data on recidivism.

"We have been scrambling to do a lot of things and one of the problems we had was getting information,'' he said.

"No previous Government ever got information on recidivism and that is shameful,'' he said.

Mr. Hodgson noted that Government would be able to divulge the recidivism rate in a few months as it was currently gathering the data.

UBP MP John Barritt pointed to some weaknesses in the wording of the legislation and said his party would be suggesting a number of amendments.

He asked why the bill referred to "qualified professionals'' but did not say who they were.

Pointing to the criminal code, Mr. Barritt noted that "qualified professionals'' were clearly stipulated as being "registered medical practitioners''.

He also charged that the bill was sexist as it assumed all sex offenders were male.

Mr. Barritt pointed out that the bill's listing of types of offenders included incest by a male but not incest by a female and further noted that the two offences did not exist in the criminal code but had been used.

Following Mr. Barritt, Public Safety Minister Paula Cox said she would include three of his concerns in the copy of the bill to be laid before the Senate.

Mr. Barritt had pointed out the amendment did not address female sexual offenders, evidentiary findings in reports and the ten year time limit for reporting after release from prison.

Three proposed amendments by Mrs. Young were shot down by Government, including the reduction of the amount of time an offender must report his address to Police down from three days to "immediately'' upon release.

Ms Cox said: "This legislation is an additional layer beyond what Prisons do with Police when someone is released.

"We're not just dealing with sexual offenders, but also violent offenders and others,'' she said.

"It's important to see this as suitable precautions rather than vigilantism.'' Kim Young Paula Cox