By T. McDonald
Fargo ND – Governor Hoeven has assembled a task force to take a look at North Dakota's Violent and Sexual Offender laws and whether they need strengthening. Hoeven says the idea behind the panel is to make sure people in the state are safe, and to create legislation that will help ensure that
We need to make sure we keep violent sexual offenders off the street. And that means life-sentences to keep them off the street. We need to more in terms of monitoring anyone that gets out on parole. To make sure to use electronic means. We have proper level of probation officers, the proper level of treatment so that those individuals don't re-offend and put our people at risk. And we want to make sure that we have the strongest civil commitment process in the country to keep violent offenders off the street.
Fargo Police Lieutenant Tod Dahle (dolly) says the current system may not be broken, but it is a good time to review of how sexual and violent offenders are monitored. He says he is hopeful that lawmakers would also keep local agencies in mind when debating change. In his State of the State Address, the Governor called for programs like G-P-S monitoring for offenders. Dahle says there's a risk that if programs like that are mandated by the state, it could hamper officials on the local level
It would be difficult for cities to fulfill a mandate that was put down like that. Not only would it require equipment, but man-power to do it. I also think that it would be a n issue that's going to take some investigating to see if it's even possible to do. I don't think you could do it with all offenders. Could you do it with offenders that are under the terms of probation? I think there's a lot of intricacies to the issue that are going to have to be investigated before its anything that can be put into actual use.
The Governor's Task Force will hold several meetings around the state to gather input. Recommendations from the panel could be delivered by July.