A group of men sat in a semicircle inside a Summerville treatment center for sex offenders. Black, white, young, old, middle-class, poor -- all had been convicted of breaking the law, and perhaps worse, violating some of society's most unspeakable taboos.

One man slept with a 12-year-old girl in a blur of drugs and alcohol when he was 18. Another had sex with a 14-year-old. A third man performed oral sex on his 2-year-old niece while baby-sitting under the influence of LSD, mushrooms and marijuana when he was 17.

All swore they had learned their lesson and would never commit another sex crime. They maintain that they deserve a chance to someday be taken off South Carolina's sex offender registry and live unrestricted lives.

"What's the use of treatment if we still have to be monitored?" asked a Charleston man, convicted of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl and kidnapping a woman at knifepoint. "There should be some form of positive application."

Maybe so, but who is willing to take that risk? Not the people who make and enforce state laws. Increasingly, in South Carolina and across the nation, states are passing laws designed to keep freed sex offenders in the public spotlight.

At least four states -- Florida, Missouri, Ohio and Oklahoma -- passed laws this year requiring lifetime electronic monitoring for some sex offenders. Other communities are joining the 14 states that have adopted buffer zones for sex offenders. Iowa, for example, bars child molesters from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day-care center.

South Carolina lawmakers weighed in as well, passing legislation that soon could use satellites to track the movements of all child molesters, at an estimated cost of $4 million. Other lawmakers are studying laws passed in Florida and other states, looking for ways to further clamp down on sex offenders.

"If we can afford to put an ankle bracelet on Martha Stewart, then we can put a bracelet on sex offenders who are raping and molesting our children," said state Sen. Jake Knotts, a West Columbia Republican. "I don't think South Carolina needs to tolerate this kind of activity."

So far, the backlash against sex offenders here has not led to violence. But the potential is there. In Bellingham, Wash., last month, a man posing as an FBI agent fatally shot two sex offenders after claiming he was there to warn them of an Internet "hit list" targeting sex offenders. A suspect later surrendered to police, saying he picked his victims from a sheriff's Web site about registered sex offenders, authorities said.

High-profile crimes such as the kidnapping, rape and killing of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in Florida earlier this year have fueled the public's unease and outrage with sex offenders. The public views them as monsters, regardless of the crimes they committed, said Jean Auldridge, head of the Virginia chapter of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants.

"People who expose themselves are being grouped together with people who kill children," she said, adding that sex offenders have "become the number one hated thing in the United States."

DO RESTRICTIONS MAKE PEOPLE SAFER?

Auldridge and others say the tougher laws and restrictions being imposed on sex offenders are hastily enacted, knee-jerk reactions to particularly horrific crimes committed by a small percentage of these offenders.

Dr. Fred Berlin, associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland, said the result is that "public policy is being driven by the exception rather than the rule" and that relatively harmless offenders are being stripped of their ability to function in a community.

"If you are going to pull the rug out from under them, in effect, are we really making the community any safer?" asked Berlin, who has worked with sex offenders for 25 years.

These arguments are a tough sell in central Florida, where Jessica Lunsford was abducted from her bed, raped, bound and buried alive in February. John Couey, the man authorities say confessed to the crime, is a registered sex offender who was living 150 yards from the girl's home.

Deputies such as Pasco County, Fla., Sgt. David DeCarlo remember all too well the emotional toll exacted by Jessica's death. He only wishes tougher laws had been available before she was kidnapped.

DeCarlo now oversees a new sex offender unit in a county where deputies check on sexual predators each month. It's extra work, but he is glad to do it.

"This case was a very personal thing that affected everyone tre-mendously," DeCarlo said. "It takes a tragic event to get the ball rolling."

Still, stranger abductions such as the Lunsford case are rare, with statistics showing that nearly 90 percent of such crimes are committed by a relative or an acquaintance.

"I can count the number of stranger cases I've worked on two hands," said Debbie Herring-Lash, an assistant solicitor in Charleston County who has prosecuted sex crimes since 1992.

TREATMENT CUTS DOWN ON REPEAT SEX CRIMES

Some studies suggest that unless offenders are treated, at least half will commit new sex crimes. But studies also suggest that the recidivism rate drops dramatically when offenders receive treatment that helps control their desires and reduce their sex drive.

John Morin, a Florida psychologist who has written a book about sex offender treatment, works with sex offenders on a daily basis. He worries that the recent crackdown could lead to sex offenders committing more crimes.

"Every time communities pass regulations, it makes answers more elusive," Morin said. "When they (sex offenders) feel oppressed, stressed and maladapted, some turn to sex. ... They are looking for something to feel good."

Laura Hudson, public policy coordinator for the South Carolina Victim Assistance Network, said the community can't afford to take any chances. She maintains the most effective solution is long prison sentences to keep these offenders away from society.

"These are the people we genuinely need to throw away the key with," she said. "I don't know too many people who want a sex offender living next door to them and their child, trying to manage their urges."

Hudson and others say more manpower is needed to monitor those on the sex offender registry. Most offenders are required to register their address just once a year, and many counties only have a deputy or two devoted to verifying those claims, making it relatively easy for offenders to slip away.

National surveys have shown that about a quarter of the more than 500,000 sex offenders who are on the streets have moved, failed to report new addresses to police and eluded detection.

One Midlands mother didn't know the youth minister in her Columbia church had been convicted of a sex crime in Maine until he was charged in 2001 with sexually assaulting her 12-year-old daughter. The girl's life then spiraled into eating disorders and hospitalizations before she moved away from home to escape the haunting reminders of her ordeal.

"It has affected every member of our family," the mother said. "I will never know what kind of person my daughter might have been if her innocence had not been stolen by this man."

Some states, such as Washington and Wisconsin, have transitional programs that gradually reintroduce sex offenders into the community under intensive supervision. Other states, such as Arizona and Massachusetts, have adopted lifetime probation programs for sex offenders that include treatment requirements and special conditions such as avoiding contact with children.

In Maricopa County, Ariz., which includes Phoenix, one such program is credited with keeping the recidivism rate among the county's sex offenders at less than 2 percent, according to Rachel Mitchell, sex crimes bureau chief for the county attorney's office.

Marty Soto, the county's director of adult probation, said monitoring these offenders isn't nearly as difficult as finding somewhere for them to live. "The courts allow them back into the community, but no one wants them to live anywhere," he said.

That's not uncommon. At any given time, the Crisis Ministries homeless shelter in Charleston has five to 10 sex offenders as guests. Many have trouble finding work or a place to live, particularly because public housing complexes exclude sex offenders, social worker Jennifer Moore said.

"I think that's why many of them turn to drugs and alcohol," she said.

On a chilly morning in December 2002, Michael Small dumped his belongings -- a soiled sleeping bag, a 10-speed bicycle and some old clothes -- on the steps in front of the Charleston County Sheriff's Office and plunked himself down in a chair, ruddy-faced, unshaven and smelling of booze.

Small had been released from state prison three months earlier after serving nearly 24 years for a rape conviction in Dillon County. He said Dillon County authorities didn't want him back, and they quickly paid his bus fare to Charleston just to be rid of him.

With no connections, he ended up at a Charleston-area homeless shelter. He was thrown out for drinking and turned to sleeping in a patch of woods.

"I'm trying to change," he told Detective Denice Catlett. Three years later, he is still homeless.

COMING TOMORROW:

A judge calls into question whether state probation officials can require convicted sex offenders to get treatment without a court order. The ruling could affect dozens of cases across South Carolina.