AUGUSTA – An intensive treatment program for incarcerated sex offenders should be off the ground within the state prison system by January 2004, a Department of Corrections official said Monday.

Dr. Joe Fitzpatrick, the department’s clinical director, told a 17-member commission exploring how Maine deals with its sex offender population that there is now no in-house treatment for those offenders, most of whom eventually are released into the community.

That was in the afternoon.

In the morning, however, the commission was told by a DOC official that sex offender treatment programs have a general success rate of only about 8 percent.

Commission chair Rep. Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, said he supported treatment, but reacted with surprise at the low success rate, appearing to suggest that he hoped the treatment program adopted by the DOC would be more effective.

Treatment is just one of many huge and often conflicting issues that the commission is dealing with as it grapples with the complex and controversial problem of how Maine deals with its sex offenders.

The type of program that Maine adopts is still up in the air, Fitzpatrick said, and the department is seeking proposals for treatment modalities from around the country.

It is envisioned that the program would serve 30 prisoners and most likely would be housed at the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, he said.

Federal funds are being used for the program, but those will run out in two or three years. The state then will have to decide whether to continue the program and pick up the cost.

While in-house treatment is a good thing, Fitzpatrick warned that it would be for naught if the state provided no follow-up community treatment when offenders are released as well as addressing the controversial matter of where sex offenders can live.

The commission plans to address a wide range of issues, including whether prison sentences for certain types of sexual crimes should be lengthened and whether to mandate community notification policies.

The DOC and police departments now are mandated to perform some notification, but those policies vary widely. In Bangor, those who live on property abutting the residence where the sex offender lives are notified by a police officer or a flier. Other departments make wider notification in a neighborhood when a sex offender moves in and post the name and photos of those offenders on the Internet.

On Monday the commission also tossed around the idea of grouping sex offenders into different categories, with some noting that perhaps an 18-year-old who has consensual sex with a 13-year-old, which is a crime, may be classified differently than a man who violently abuses children at random. Under the current system, both would be classified as violent sexual predators.

Dr. Brian Rines of Gardiner, who represents psychologists and psychiatrists on the commission and often evaluates sex offenders, said there were vast differences in the dangers that offenders posed to the public at large and Maine seems to lump them all into the violent sexual predator category.

The commission is expected to meet again sometime in October and again in November and December before presenting its findings and recommendations.