Ohio meets sex-offender registry standards

10-5-2012 Ohio:

Thirty-four states are in danger of losing federal funding for failing to comply with federal standards for sex-offender registries, but Ohio is not among them.

Ohio is one of only 16 states in compliance with the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act to create a uniform system of registering and tracking sex offenders, according to the office of Attorney General Mike DeWine.

Some states have concluded that it will be cheaper to forfeit 10 percent of their federal law-enforcement grants as a penalty rather than spend millions to upgrade their systems to meet federal requirements, the Associated Press reported.

Ohio's sex offender registry lists 19,174 names -- including 1,678 in Franklin County, 314 in Licking County, 133 in Fairfield County, 84 in Delaware County, 66 in Pickaway County, 53 in Union County and 32 in Madison County. Cuyahoga County has the most sex offenders in the state with 2,929.

The state spends about $400,000 a year on vendors on top of in-house costs for maintaining the registry, according to DeWine's office (State AG). ..Source.. by Randy Ludlow