ALBANY - When Andrew McDaniels, a convicted sex offender in upstate N.Y., was interviewed by a parole officer in September, he faced something new. The parole officer had a laptop computer receiving data from skin sensors on McDaniels. When the parole officer noticed a blip, he asked more pointed questions.

Soon, McDaniels acknowledged he had been around boys near Watkins Glen, parole officials said Monday. More officers followed up in the field and the parolee was accused of violating the condition of his release that requires him to stay away from children. He remains in Schuyler County Jail until a hearing this week, Parole Division spokesman Scott Steinhardt said.

New York is the latest state to require paroled sex offenders to answer questions while hooked to a lie-detecting computer.

The action, by the outgoing Pataki administration, comes just before the legislature will consider civil confinement for the most dangerous sex offenders after they complete their sentences. Gov. George Pataki has called for the legislature to meet Wednesday to pass a civil confinement bill for sex offenders.

Parole officers equipped with the computers ask convicted sex offenders about where they have been and who they have seen to determine whether they might have violated parole. They are also asked if they committed any new crimes.

“It is being used more,” said Anna Carol Salter, a Harvard-trained clinical psychologist in Madison, Wis. She lectures on sex offenders and is a consultant to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, which uses polygraphs for sex offender cases.

“I think it is proving to be effective. You get many, many more admissions by offenders about illegal activities and it also appears to act as a deterrent,” she said. “They are often more fearful of lying to a polygraph than they are to a person.”

Skin monitors provide data on changes in a subject's skin temperature, moisture and electrical signals sent to the brain. The information is then sent to the computer, where a trained operator does the analysis. Long gone is the stylus hooked up to a paper roller.

Salter said, however, there is a concern. A badly administered test, for example, could yield results that show a parolee is following the rules when he or she isn't. That would lull parole officials into a false sense that all is well. And, she said: “It's easy to do a bad polygraph.”

The use of polygraphs for sex offenders, begun in the early 1970s in Oregon, Idaho and Washington, has spread steadily nationwide, said T.V. O'Malley of the American Polygraph Association.

“It's getting more popular as polygraph has cleaned up its act and we became very sophisticated about sex offender results,” he said. “The alternative is self-disclosure. And that doesn't work.”

In New York, 13 parole officers have been trained to do the tests as part of “Operation Truth or Consequences,” state Division of Parole Executive Director Anthony G. Ellis II said Monday. The training, equipment and the cost to dedicate trained officers to conduct the tests is about $1 million this fiscal year, according to the division.

“There are no limits as to what you can ask, but they are trained to gear it in a certain way so you can get what you are looking for,” said Angela Jimenez, director of operations at the division.

“This group needs tighter control,” she said, noting that there is a high rate of recidivism among sex offenders.

Polygraphs are being used on sex offenders in more than two dozen states, sometimes in trial programs, and in Great Britain, according to newspaper accounts. A British pilot program found 85 percent of convicted sex offenders were committing new crimes or violating parole or simply failed the polygraph, according to The Independent of London.

A study by the Colorado Department of Public Safety sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice found more than half of the sex offenders subjected to polygraph tests were in violation of their supervision rules. As a result, 37 percent were given new treatment plans and 15 percent were returned to court for further action.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers based in Washington is studying the issue, but has some concerns. For example, supporters say the tests are 90 percent accurate, while detractors say they are only 70 percent accurate. Even at 90 percent, that could mean thousands of innocent men and women would face jail time or further restrictions because of a bad test, said the association's Jack King.

“We don't have a policy yet, but generally you don't want to put somebody's liberty in the hands of a polygrapher,” King said.

In May, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Albany ruled that lie detector tests can be used on sex offenders, but included safeguards such as limiting questions to information necessary for supervision, case monitoring and treatment.

The appeals court ruling found that polygraph testing “produces an incentive to tell the truth, and thereby advances the sentencing goals.”