Sheriff seeks money to monitor sex offenders

10-25-2007 North Carolina:

The Pitt County Sheriff's Office is seeking money to improve sex offender registration and tracking in the county.

Sheriff officials have applied for an Adam Walsh grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to pay for the hours needed to verify addresses of registered sex offenders living in Pitt County, said Melissa Larson, grants administrator with the Pitt County Sheriff's Office.

The grant is to help jurisdictions comply with requirements of the Adam Walsh Child and Safety Act of 2006. Passed on the 25th anniversary of the kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Adam Walsh, the legislation is designed to protect the public from violent sex offenders via a more comprehensive, nationalized system for the registration of sex offenders. The act calls for state conformity to various aspects of sex offender registration including verification, access to and sharing of information.

There are 206 registered sex offenders in Pitt County, according to the latest State Bureau of Investigation's registry report. That total is the ninth highest among the state's 100 counties.

The county has one officer responsible for verifying and registering offenders.

If a jurisdiction doesn't comply with federal requirements within three years of its implementation, it gets a 10 percent reduction in other law enforcement assistance grants, the act says.

Larson said Pitt County is in compliance with federal requirements, but the additional funding would allow them to improve their procedures.

"We are actually ahead of the game as far as compliance," Larson said. "We just want to be able to take it one step further. A lot of agencies in the nation don't have the resources or the funds or maybe just don't see it as an issue, but the Pitt County Sheriff's Office, we take that stuff seriously. We want to be sure we are going above and beyond to protect our kids."

Along with providing for overtime hours, the grant also would help the sheriff's department develop educational materials and make the community more aware of the dangers associated with personal Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook.com, Larson said.

"We would like to encourage parents to keep a closer eye on how children are portraying themselves online because that could be a gateway for sex offenders," Larson said.

An upgrade in software for the department's records management system also would be funded by the grant, Larson said.

Sex offender registration must occur before an offender is released from imprisonment or within three days of a nonimprisonment sentence, federal law states. Changes in registry information must be reported in that time period as well.

Offenders are restricted in how close they can live to certain facilities such as child care centers and schools.

Larson said she applied for the grant about two weeks ago after getting approval from county commissioners last month.

If awarded, Pitt County Sheriff's Office will receive $37,070 in federal funds and a $12,357 county match. ..more.. by Brock Letchworth, The Daily Reflector