Arizona lawmakers leaned toward increasing fines and penalties against criminal offenders, including sex offenders, during the 2007 session.
A new law, for example, restricts sexual offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school or a childcare facility.
However, lawmakers also passed and the governor signed a bill that allows juveniles accused of certain non-violent sexual offenses to avoid prosecution as an adult. The bill, S1628, also requires age-appropriate treatment for juveniles.
 “We’re talking about inappropriate touching,” the bill’s author, Sen. Karen Johnson, R-18, earlier said of the legislation. “To have it ruin a child’s life is horrendous.”
The law requires youth sex offenders to be placed in a treatment program, if group treatment is prescribed, among peers with similar offenses. It requires the court, at the request of the offender, to conduct a hearing at least once a year to determine whether to continue or terminate the probation, whether to end one’s registration as a sex offender, and whether to defer or terminate community notification. Factors the court must consider at the transfer hearing include the seriousness of the offense, the record of the juvenile, the views of the victim, and the juvenile’s mental and emotional condition. Upon request, the court must hold a probation hearing at least once a year for a registered sex offender who is under 22 years of age if the offense occurred when the person was a minor.
It also states that if a juvenile is prosecuted as an adult at the discretion of the prosecutor, the defendant can ask the court to hold a hearing to determine if jurisdiction should be transferred to a juvenile court. The court must also hold a hearing if the offense was committed more than a year before the date that criminal charges were filed. The court can initiate a hearing on its own.