When I was elected Staten Island’s district attorney, I pledged to the people of my community that my office would be focused not only on prosecuting those criminals who commit crimes, but also to undertake efforts to prevent crimes as well. As district attorney, I have commenced an effort to educate children and their parents on ways to prevent child abduction. However, as a prosecutor, I believe that current law in New York State does not go far enough to protect our most vulnerable citizens from violent sexual predators.

The recent sexual assault and murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in rural Florida by a convicted sex offender, is the latest in a long string of tragedies where our children have been preyed upon by sexual predators for whom there is no hope of rehabilitation.

The pedophile who confessed to killing young Jessica, John Couey, has a long history of inappropriate contact with children and a rap sheet totaling 25 arrests for various crimes. Following a 1991 arrest in Central Florida in which Couey admitted to exposing himself to another young girl, he admitted to molesting numerous children over the years, but this was the first time he had been caught. In his confession to Kissimmee police, Couey told investigators that the five-year prison sentence he was about to serve would not cure his desires.

Those desires led to the murder of little Jessica Lunsford. Our newspapers and airwaves have been filled with horrifying tales of children deprived of their innocence and their very lives. The names of Samantha Runnion and Megan Kanka are but two of dozens who became household names due to the tragedy of sexual predators set free to roam our streets.

The innocence of two such victims has been similarly claimed, by career sexual predators, in our communities in recent months.

Vincent McCollum, is a career criminal who has spent 24 of the last 27 years in prison, having been convicted of the vicious rape of a young woman in Brooklyn in 1986. Three months after this sex offender was paroled for that case, in May 2004, McCollum is alleged to have beaten and repeatedly raped a 15-year-old girl at knifepoint in her home in the Mariner’s Harbor section of Staten Island. He also beat the girl’s mother and then set their apartment aflame, further injuring both the mother and daughter. Fortunately, no one was killed in this horrific attack.

In Westchester County, a pedophile, Eddie W. Cordero Sr., was indicted in February by a grand jury for the abduction and rape of a 12-year-old Yonkers girl. His victim was grabbed while waiting at a bus stop and dragged into his car. Cordero had previously served time in prison for sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in Peekskill.

Similar cases, in which convicted sex offenders attacked again after being released from prison, have occurred throughout the nation and here in New York State. The fact is that many of these violent sex offenders simply cannot be rehabilitated and are likely to strike again upon release.

In early March, I joined with the Westchester County district attorney, Jeanine Ferris Pirro and members of the Republican Assembly Caucus, to voice our support for civil confinement legislation, which has overwhelmingly passed the State Senate but has not been advanced for a floor vote by the Assembly’s Democratic leadership.

Civil confinement would allow the courts to order the worst sex offenders held in a secure facility (staffed by mental health professionals) beyond their prison release date if, upon evaluation, there is significant reason to believe they may strike again. Legislation of this nature is vital because sexually violent predators are released into our communities upon the expiration of their prison sentences without the benefit of treatment designed to address their problems.

Enactment of this legislation, accompanied by the resources to successfully prosecute the civil confinement hearings, would give our justice system the discretion to keep the most dangerous, high-risk predators locked in a secure mental facility after having served their prison sentence, if they are unfit to return to society.

Legislation of this kind has already passed constitutional muster before the U.S. Supreme Court and is the law of the land in over a dozen states and the District of Columbia.

Some critics of this legislation have argued that the answer to violent sexual predators is to simply enact longer sentences. Our system of justice does not allow judges to incarcerate someone indefinitely. Short of a life sentence without parole, there will always be a chance that these predators will be free to roam our streets.

Civil confinement meets both the need for treatment of the patient and for public safety by segregating the predator from the general public.

It is time for the majority leadership of the New York State Assembly to act before the recess of this legislative session. It is time for the majority leadership of the Assembly to act before violent sexual predators claim another innocent victim.

Mr. Donovan is the district attorney for Staten Island.