Changes ahead for sex offender registray

Photo by Russ Mitchell Parents can use the Web site www.iowasexoffender.com to monitor the whereabouts of people who are subject to the Iowa Sex Offender Registry. Under current law, registrants are prohibited from living within 2,000 feet of designated areas, including schoolyards, playgrounds and daycare facilities.

The Iowa Sex Offender Registry will take a step toward real-time public notification following the announcement of a federal grant earlier this month.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said the Iowa Department of Public Safety will receive a $269,450 technology-based grant from the Department of Justice through the Adam Walsh Act.

The federal bill is named after a 6-year-old boy who was abducted from a department store in Hollywood, Fla. in 1981. His remains were recovered about two weeks later near Vero Beach, Fla.

The youth's disappearance prompted his father John Walsh to become an advocate for victim's rights. He's known for his work to establish the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and his role as host of the "America's Most Wanted" series.

The Walsh Act could extend the time a name is kept on the registry and make more information available to the public about registered sex offenders -- including where they work and the vehicles they are likely to use.

Steven Conlon, assistant director with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, said the grant money will be used for upgrades to the Iowa Sex Offender Registry. The registry is required for Iowans who have been convicted of a sex-related crime. About 6,000 residents are required to report their whereabouts each time they change addresses in, or when they leave, Iowa.

Faster address notifications

There are 17 Clay County residents on the iowasexoffender.com Web site as of Tuesday. The list is updated daily.

"Right now, a registrant needs to go to the sheriff's office to either register or do a change of address," Conlon said. "Unfortunately they have to do that by filling out a form and the sheriff's office needs to mail that in. We're looking at getting that all done electronically now. Literally, if a person walks into the Clay County Sheriff's Office tomorrow to register or to change an address, we may not get that specific information for another couple of days. Once we get the system electronically in place, if the person's in there registering at 1 p.m., they could be in our database a short time later."

Conlon said the result is a more current, more accurate, more timely and more accessible Internet destination for the public.

Grassley said the grant also will allow the Iowa Department of Public Safety to add software programs that immediately validate addresses given at the time of registration. Staff members at a sheriff's office can search jail and prison records of more than 11,000 agencies throughout the United States to cross reference the offender's information with other law enforcement or criminal justice entities.

Registry changes

Future Walsh Act funding presses the state to make changes in its sex offender registry policies -- that's something lawmakers have been reluctant to do in each of the last two legislative sessions. The state currently is not in compliance with the Adam Walsh Act.

"Every July we have started losing a percentage of money we would have received," Conlon said. "The final penalty will be on July 1, 2009."

Conlon expects changes if the state agrees to comply with the Adam Walsh Act.

"I truly consider it an honor and a pleasure to have been involved in our registry, literally from day one," Conlon said. "We started working on legislation in 1994, and our registry went into effect -- went into law -- on July 1, 1995… At that time, basically, they were required to either register for 10 years or for life. That's pretty much the way our system has been up until now."

Under the federal law, the minimum registration period is 15 years, according to Conlon.

"They really subscribe to a three-tiered system approach, where you are either required to either register for 15, for 25 (years) or life, he said. "They're not mandating that the states have to have this three-tiered system, but it is suggested to bring more consistency and uniformity amongst the 50 states."

In 2005 and the Iowa Department of Public Safety started removing names from the Iowa Sex Offender Registry because they had completed their 10-year requirement.

"Literally, right now, every month, we do remove a certain number of registrants because they were only required to register for 10 years and now they have done that," Conlon said.

It would be up to Iowa lawmakers do determine if names are returned to the list in compliance with the 15-year recommendations of the Adam Walsh Act.

"There will be a fair amount of changes that will occur," Conlon said. "We are going to see more information being collected from the registrant, there will be more information available to the public, there's going to be improved tracking and awareness monitoring of the registrant's location to ensure they are registered at the location they report they are."

New information

County sheriffs would start collecting employment information for the first time under provisions of the Walsh Act.

"We don't do that now. We've heard discussions on both sides -- that it is long overdue, and that it's really not necessary," Conlon said.

"On the pro side: The people are saying; 'If I have a 14-, 15- or 16-year-old son or daughter who is working in some environment, it's their right to know who they are working shoulder-to-shoulder with,'" Conlon said. "I think the whole attempt is: We don't create or maintain an environment where a sex offender can, sort of, blend into the woodwork or hide from the public."

The Walsh Act funding will meet the Iowa Sheriffs' and Deputies' Association request to improve the tracking ability of law enforcement agencies: An offender would have three days to notify law enforcement about a change of address. They currently have five days to report the change under current state laws.

Another aspect of the Walsh Act will establish a public information database about the vehicles a registered sex offender has access to.

"The information is provided for the public to make good, informed decisions about the well-being of their families," Conlon said. "Any attempt to use this information to target or commit a crime against a registrant, obviously, is illegal and a person can and will be charged for any type of harassment, assault, vandalism, terrorism or any type of crime committed against the registrants."

The 2,000-foot requirement

The federal law doesn't address residency restrictions. Under current Iowa law, offenders must live 2,000 feet away from locations such as schools, daycare centers or parks.

"Last year, the state sheriff's association, the county attorney's association, the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault and (other groups) came out and wanted to, basically, get rid of the 2,000-foot law," Conlon said. "They suggested something like a safe zone, where it would illegal for a registered sex offender to go onto the property of a school or daycare provider without first informing the administrator of that facility about the date and time they were going to be on the grounds."

Clay County Sheriff Randy Krukow was president of the Iowa State Sheriffs' and Deputies' Association in January 2007. The organization wanted the 2,000 residency ban replaced.

"There is no correlation between residency restrictions and reducing sex offenses against children or improving the safety of children," the attorney's association said in a statement during the 2007 legislative session. "Research does not support the belief that children are more likely to be victimized by strangers at the covered locations than at other places."

At the same time, Iowa's 99 sheriffs had the task of logging and monitoring the whereabouts of their jurisdiction's sex offenders. It was a sheriff's job to make sure an offender's address was outside of the 2,000-foot limit near daycares and schools.

"I started becoming a real estate agent," Krukow said, in 2007. "The amount of time and energy on this was pretty intensive. What happened was: We more than doubled the number of people who went underground. Before, I probably had 99 percent of them registered. Of those registered, we knew where they were at, and a lot of them were employed. When this 2,000-foot law came in, we drove a lot of those underground."

Registrants who repeatedly fail to report their whereabouts to their county sheriff are subject to felony charges. Deputies arrested 28-year-old Allen Frank Mills for failure to comply as a sex offender. His listed address is 2350 Highway 18, but he was found living at 902 East Seventh St., according to a statement from the sheriff's office. Because he's been cited numerous times for failing to report an address change, Mills faces a Class D felony charge for the violation.

He was held to appear before a magistrate.