NEW YORK, Aug 28 2006 (IPS) — Politicians in primarily southern U.S. states have passed laws that expand the use of the death penalty to include repeat child sex offenders – a move mental health professionals say is ineffective in stopping molestation and abolitionists believe ultimately will be ruled unconstitutional.

Despite the warnings, though, two states, South Carolina and Oklahoma, this summer enacted laws that allow repeat child sex offenders to be put to death. They join Louisiana, Florida, and Montana, which already have similar laws on their books.

The governors of both Oklahoma and South Carolina argued that the sexual abuse of children is as bad as murder because molestation causes permanent damage to the life of the child.

“(It) is about sending a very clear message that there are some lines that you do not cross,” said South Carolina governor Mark Sanford in a statement, “and that if those lines are crossed the penalties will be severe.”

Oklahoma State Senator Jay Paul Gumm echoed the sentiment. “We allow the death penalty for someone who has killed a body,” Gumm, who authored the Oklahoma bill, said in a statement. “Why would we allow someone to escape who has killed a soul?”

But critics dismiss such reasoning as irrational and unconstitutional, even though they acknowledge that child rape is a serious crime.

“Obviously, it’s a very, very serious crime,” said John Holdridge, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) capital punishment project, in an interview with IPS. “But this law is totally disproportionate to the crime, which does not involve a case of an eye for an eye.”

Holdridge’s remarks seem to parallel the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1977 opinion on a case involving the rape of an adult woman in Georgia. The ruling suggests that the death penalty may only be applied in cases of murder, not rape.

Deciding the case, the Court observed that execution for rape was “disproportionate to the crime.”

“Rape is without doubt deserving of serious punishment,” the ruling said, “but in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public, it does not compare with murder, which does involve the unjustified taking of human life.”

Moreover, citing the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Court described the death penalty for rape as “a cruel and unusual punishment.”

Along with the majority of lawmakers in South Carolina and Oklahoma who voted in favour of death penalty laws, Gumm reasoned that only an unusual punishment, such as execution, could deter those who repeatedly use sexual violence against minors.

One death penalty opponent called it “a very stupid message,” and Holdridge agreed. “This law is terrible for the victim,” he said. “It gives no incentive to the offender not to kill the victim.”

Moreover, in most child molestation cases, the victims and offenders know each other. Holdridge doubts family members would be willing to report the cases of child rape. Family members would not like to see the offender executed, they said.

Since the 1977 Supreme Court ruling, no one convicted of child molestation has been executed in the United States. One inmate in Louisiana, however, currently sits on death row for raping a child.

Patrick O. Kennedy was sentenced to die in 2003 for raping an eight-year-old girl. His case is working through appeals courts in Louisiana. It is not clear when or if it would come before the U.S. Supreme Court, but observers say it is likely.

Since the Supreme Court’s previous decision against using the death penalty in the rape case involved an adult victim, proponents of execution for child rape are hoping the high court will not take that ruling into consideration.

Opponents, however, say despite the fact that the Supreme Court is now dominated by conservative judges, the possibility that judges may decide the Louisiana case in the light of its 1977 decision cannot be ruled out.

“When it finally reaches the Supreme Court,” Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Centre (DPI), and a long-time observer of capital punishment cases, told IPS, “It’s most likely to be struck down.”

Other critics of the death penalty laws say they fear that children may be forced by malevolent adults to make false statements against the innocent.

“There was a flurry of trials during the 1980s and 1990s of adults charged with sexual crimes against children in daycare centres,” according to Amnesty International, the London-based rights group. “(But) time has shown that all, or almost all, of the alleged perpetrators were innocent.”

Indeed, mental health professionals who work with repeat sex offenders say they do not believe the death penalty will deter a child molester.

“It’s a very simplistic way to deal with the issue of child molestation,” said Dr. Gerald Landsberg, professor of social work at the New York University, in an interview with IPS.

Dr. Landsberg, who has authored several publications in the area of forensic mental health and violence, said various methods of treatment are available for child molesters, though there is a “very mixed” opinion about which are most effective. Sometimes, for instance, child molesters are treated with chemical castration.

(*Aashti Bhartia contributed to this report.)