New Jersey Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey signed a bill on Thursday forbidding Internet access to sex offenders to prevent them from committing more sex crime.

"No matter how much you trust your kids, no matter how much you think you know what they're doing, there are some sick people out there that will stop at nothing to prey on them. This legislation will give us some of the toughest tools in the nation to crack down on the growing threat of Internet predators," said Codey (D-Essex), the Senate president who is filling in for the vacationing Gov. Jon Corzine, the Star-Ledger reported.

The bill restricts Internet use for anyone who used a computer to help commit sex crime. The law may also be applied to paroled sex offenders under lifetime supervision. However, the new law exempts job-related computer work or search for employment.

Under the new law, convicted sex offenders have to submit to periodic, unannounced examinations of their computers and install equipment on their computers so they can be monitored, the Associated Press reported.

Parole officers can also order polygraph tests for convicts suspected of violating the Internet ban, said Parole Board Chairman Peter Barnes. The Parole Board is currently supervising about 4,200 paroled sex offenders whose sentencing is implying lifetime supervision, no matter their offences involved the Internet or not. The Parole Board approved new rules last month forbidding those convicts from using internet social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Sex offenders who ignore such bans face criminal charges that carry up to 18 months in prison and a fine up to $10,000. Before this law, they only faced a 12-month stint in prison for a parole violation.

New Jersey becomes the third state, after Florida and Nevada, to restrict sex offenders’ access to the Internet.