As members of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice Committee turn their attention to the perennial issue of dealing with sex offenders, they should define the scope of the problem and decide what solutions work and are available in Maine before voting for tougher sentences or housing restrictions that could cost a lot but do little to improve safety.

Yesterday, the committee began consideration of nearly a dozen bills aimed at reducing sex crimes. More hearings are scheduled for Monday. The bills primarily increase sentences and restrict where sex offenders can live. Tougher sentences are popular, but as Maine’s overcrowded prisons show, expensive and perhaps ineffective.

Rather than trying to appear tough on crime, in some cases by sponsoring legislation that was rejected last year, lawmakers should want to know what really works. To do this, they first need to know the scale of Maine’s sexual crime problem. Are we about average? Is this type of crime a larger problem here? Lawmakers who sponsored some of the bills before the Criminal Justice Committee didn’t provide such information when asked.

Second, they should want to know what options are available to reduce sexual crimes. Longer sentencing and housing restrictions are likely only two among many options. Then, lawmakers need to find out what options are available in Maine and how much they cost.

As for the scope of the problem, the Justice Department reports that 93 percent of child sexual abuse victims knew their abuser, with most crimes happening in the home of the child, a relative, a neighbor or a friend.

A department study of sex offenders released from prison in 1994 found that 5.3 percent were rearrested for another sex crime within three years, while 68 percent of non-sex offenders were rearrested for another felony or serious misdemeanor during the same time.

Tougher sentences and housing restrictions may make communities less safe. Prosecutors warned that mandatory sentences allow more offenders to go free because it would take away a prosecutor’s ability to plea bargain. Without plea bargain, most offenders faced with a mandatory 25-year sentence will request a trial. This would require young victims to testify, further traumatizing them. Worse, it is hard to get convictions when the chief prosecution witness is a child. As a result, many offenders would get no jail time.

Housing restrictions tend to drive offenders into sparsely populated areas, where there is less supervision, less access to treatment and fewer jobs.

On the cost issue, LD 46, which would require a 25-year minimum sentence for those convicted of sexual crimes against victims under 12 and life sentences for a second offense, could cost up to nearly $1 million per convict, according to the bill’s fiscal note.

This should prompt lawmakers to ask whether there are more effective, less expensive alternatives, such as electronic monitoring. Without this information, calling for tougher sentences is little more than grandstanding.

Lawmakers would do better to examine whether existing restrictions, such as lifetime probation, is effective, before endorsing expensive but likely ineffective solutions.