Editorial: Sex offender registry must be accurate

7-8-2010 Vermont:

Vermont's online sex offender registry can be a powerful tool in helping keep our community safer, but only if the registry is reliable. The problems reported by State Auditor Tom Salmon underscore the importance of getting the information absolutely right.

Too often, people accused of sex-related crime will turn out to have records of similar acts, yet their names can by missing from the registry. Worse than the missing names, however, are the presence of names that should not be on the list.

The audit was mandated by Act 58, the law passed in the wake of the 2008 rape and killing of Braintree 12-year-old Brooke Bennett. Her uncle, Michael Jacques, a convicted sex offender, is charged in her killing.

The law passed in 2009 created a new crime -- aggravated sexual assault against a child -- that carries a mandatory 25-year minimum prison term. The law also expanded the scope of the sex offender registry, both in terms of the crimes covered and the information to be posted, including the addresses of the offenders on the list.

There are few things worse in our society today than being tagged as a sex offender. That's as it should be, but the weight of the consequences means we have to be very careful about how we use the label.

The audit found human error and system "anomalies and glitches" among the causes for the registry's problems. The audit also found "that the established controls were largely manual and were not always documented or applied consistently."

The results show the audit was a prudent step before expanding the registry, and as the results showed, a necessary step.

The posting of sex offenders' addresses online is a serious step that can make the registry a more useful tool for the community, yet the information can be misused.
An online sex-offender registry is an imperfect technology that relies on people to make it work. To be effective, the information must be reliable -- and the community must believe it is reliable -- so we can keep better track of people who pose a particular type of danger to society. ..Source.. Burlington Free Press