New York, NY —

Governor Spitzer has reached a deal with legislative leaders on a way to confine New York's worst convicted sex offenders after they've finished their prison sentences.

REPORTER: Under the bill, mental health experts will screen inmates to see if they're likely to repeat their crimes. If so, a jury will determine whether that inmate needs supervision, and a judge will decide whether that will be in a psychiatric facility, or on an outpatient basis. Spitzer says government must protect the most vulnerable in society.

SPITZER: That is why, when there is a high risk of repeat crime, as determined by experts upon a finding of mental abnormality, we simply cannot release this people into society, to victimize others.

REPORTER: But JoAnn Page, with the Fortune Society, a group that helps former inmates, calls the deal "legislation by horror story," and says the new legislation is not based on evidence, or on what works.