AUGUSTA – Anxious mothers asked the Legislature on Friday to protect their children by increasing sentences for child abuse and expanding the sex abusers registry program.

Members of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee replied that tougher laws on child abuse are likely to make it through this session, because of public concern about the issue. What form those laws take remains to be seen. During a work session at 9:30 a.m. April 2, the committee will work to form a single comprehensive bill from 10 proposals presented on Friday.

Rep. Julie Ann O’Brien, R-Augusta, said sex abuse of children is “a huge problem” in Maine. One official said that a pedophile abuses from 30 to 60 children on average before he is caught. Corrections officials reported that nine registered sex offenders live in a 10-block area in the Lewiston-Auburn area, which is home to hundreds of children.

O’Brien sponsored a bill, LD 170, which would make the sex offender registration requirement retroactive to crimes committed since 1985. The registration now dates back to September 1999. “This is a public safety issue, not a punitive issue,” O’Brien told the committee.

The bill has the grateful appreciation of Waterville mother Cary Prelgovisk. Her son’s birthday swim party last year was disrupted when a convicted sex offender took pictures of boys changing clothes in a locker room. The man had been convicted of sexual abuse five years earlier and was not required to register, she said. He now lives with two other convicted sex abusers across the street from a Waterville school, Prelgovisk said. Procedures followed under the O’Brien bill would have at least alerted the local police department to their location, she said.

Making the registration requirement retroactive could be unconstitutional, said state police Deputy Chief Jeff Harmon. Under the current program, the sex offenders registration program is expected to have 4,000 sex offenders within a few years. Making the system retroactive would add at least another several thousand offenders and also add to the expense, he said.

Child abusers should not be allowed to live within a mile of a school or day care center, said Rep. John Michael, an independent from Auburn. But according to the Department of Corrections, the Michael bill, LD 1030, was unworkable because it would ban housing for sex abusers anywhere in major urban areas including Portland or Lewiston-Auburn. Major cities have so many schools and day care centers that there would be no living area outside the 1-mile radius proposed by Michael.

The answer to controlling child abuse is not longer sentences or an expanded registration system, but additional programs and treatment, according to the Maine Civil Liberties Union and the Maine Council of Churches. Joan Sturmthal of MCLU told the committee that child abusers “should be free to do what the rest of us do,” once they serve their prison sentences.

Prison officials admitted there currently is little or no treatment for convicted child abusers. Denise Giles of the Department of Corrections said there is no “full-blown, comprehensive treatment program” for sex offenders and very little follow-up once inmates are released, especially if they are not on probation.

Other bills, which came before the committee on Friday, included:

. LD 838, sponsored by Rep. Marilyn Canavan, D-Waterville, which would make the offenders registration requirement retroactive to June 1992 to make “a safe environment for children.”

. LD 626, sponsored by Rep. David A. Trahan, R-Waldoboro, which would expand the offender registry system that he said is one of the weakest in the country.

. LD 817, sponsored by Sen. Susan Longley, D-Liberty, who asked the Legislature to “err on the side of the children” and make all sex offenders register for the rest of their lives.

. LD 827, sponsored by Rep. Deborah McNeil, R-Rockland, which would establish mandatory prison sentences after two convictions of child abuse.

. LD 1397, sponsored by Rep. Zackary E. Matthews, D-Winslow, which would require the corrections department to post the names and addresses of all sex offenders.

. LD 476, sponsored by Rep. Julie O’Brien, which would establish lifetime probation for dangerous sexual offenders.