Officers stop in on Vandy Co. offenders

Yup, again we see confusion, mixing sex offenders with violent offenders, two totally different registries each under separate laws! So how many sex offenders were actually checked? Never let it be said that states can report something right..

7-1-2011 Indiana:

VANDERBURGH CO., IN (WFIE) - Authorities make surprise home visits to convicted sex offenders and other violent offenders.

Vanderburgh County Deputies, along with U.S. Marshals, made the unannounced visits to verify the addresses of more than 300 registered offenders over three days.

Arrests were made for five people violating the sex offender registry.

Deputies say 253 sex offenders, or 82 percent, were living at the address matching the one in registry. But, 38 participants were not verified, and will have to be rechecked.

For years, detectives at the Vanderburgh Country Sheriff's Office thought they were only allowed to do check-ins on sex offenders once a year, but have since learned, according to state law, they can check as much as necessary.

"We definitely want our records to be accurate. We want to check the truthfulness of the those records and we want them to be reflected to the best of ability," Det. Mike Robinson says.

For the records to be accurate, detectives say they needed to know if they were living at the registered address. One way to do that is the element of surprise.

"Two hundred and fifty three of the sex or violent offenders were verified meaning they were at their address. We knocked on the door. They were compliant and cordial," Det. Robinson says.

"We did this to be a truthful reflection of what the sex offender registry is doing and how the website works," Det. Robinson says.

The sheriff's office say they need your help in locating a offender that has failed to register.

His name is Stephen Hester. They say Hester was convicted in of four counts of child molestation.

If you know where Hester is, you're asked to call the sheriff's office. ..Source.. by Becky Graham

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1 of 4 Montana sex offender addresses unverified

Yup, you can rely on what the State Publishes, NOT!

7-1-2011 Montana:

HELENA - The addresses for one out of every four offenders in Montana's sexual and violent offender registry are unverified and possibly unreliable, casting doubt on the credibility of the registry used by everyone from concerned parents checking out new neighbors to house hunters in search of a safe neighborhood.

A new audit found that 26 percent of the offenders in the state's database have not returned a required address verification letter even though not doing so puts them at risk of going back to prison. The report found that the state never notified members of the public or local police checking the list that many of the addresses are not verified.

The backers of the advocacy group that pushed Congress to adopt Megan's Law in the mid-1990s, which requires states to make information on sex offenders available to the public, said the biggest problem all along with the registries has been maintaining accurate data.

Most states notify the public with websites like Montana uses, and many have struggled over the years to keep the information current, said Maureen Kanka, whose daughter Megan was killed in 1994 by a sex offender - a crime that helped launch the push for public registries.

"Unfortunately if law enforcement drops the ball you are going to run into problems like this. That is one of the biggest problems, the lack of following through," said Kanka. "That is probably the most common problem they have with the registries is making sure they are kept up to date. That is not unheard of."

Montana officials pointed out that an unverified address in its system does not necessarily mean the offender has moved elsewhere and could be a threat to unsuspecting neighbors. The Montana Department of Justice, which tracks roughly 5,000 offenders in the state, said some have simply failed to return the address verification letter required by law.

In nearly a third of the cases, the offenders are back in jail and the managers of the database were never notified. And the auditors found seven cases where dead offenders were still listed as active in the registry.

"When members of the public access the Web site or law enforcement queries data, thy will not be aware of the offender's failure to verify their registration," the auditors wrote in a new report. "Therefore, they may not be aware of the offender's actual location."

But in many instances, the legislative audit revealed, authorities aren't sure where the offenders are living.

The Department of Justice said that it is making some changes.

The agency plans to flag unverified offenders so those looking at the website are aware of the situation. Additionally, it plans to send local police frequent reports on unverified offenders so officers can check on unverified offenders, and track them down in need be.

Auditors reported that agency managers initially resisted flagging unverified offenders because it "would lead the public and law enforcement to question the data in the registry since such a large number have not verified their registration."

Mike Batista, a Department of Justice administrator, said the improvements will be made. But overall, he said "by and large" the public can rely on the website that provides a map of offender locations.

"I think they can rely on a lot of the information," Batista said. "It's a challenging program in terms of being able to constantly know on any given day where an offender resides."

Kanka said the public should help police, noting it is impossible for authorities to constantly monitor the offenders.

"There is nothing wrong with being diligent and being watchful and making police aware if you notice an offender has moved and is not living where they are supposed to anymore," Kanka said. "The registries are only as good as what we put into them." ..Source.. by Billings Gazette

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State Police plan county-by-county sex offender compliance sweeps

In part this"compliance check" is illegal. If they are doing what the article claims to registrants not under some form of supervision, then they are doing it illegally! i.e. checking computers hard drives and the like. In addition, U.S. Marshals have no jurisdiction doing home address checks of state convicted offenders, unless the state has already reported a state offender to be out of compliance, so allowing the Marshals to tag alone -for the major portion of the sweep- is a complete waste of taxpayer money.

6-28-2011 West Virginia:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The West Virginia State Police is taking aim at registered sex offenders who have not kept their information up to date.

On Friday, State Police, along with the U.S. Marshals Service, began compliance sweeps of more than 30 registered offenders in Summers County. Police divided up the sweep by where the offenders were located in the county and went door to door to see if reported information was accurate.

They are planning to do these sweeps county by county and already swept Greenbrier County in April, said M.K. Summers of the State Police Crimes Against Children Unit.

The State Police conduct compliance sweeps annually, but these are some of the first sweeps to involve multiple State Police divisions and the Marshals Service, he said.

According to the state Sex Offender Registry Act, anyone convicted of a sex crime or an attempted sex crime is required to register with the police detachment in his or her county of residence. The offender must register their full name and aliases, their home address, their vehicles or motor home, their Internet accounts and screen names and places of employment, among other information.

If the offender changes their address or any other stored information, he or she must report it to the police within 10 days. Any offender violating this law can face felony charges, and if convicted, can be imprisoned for up to five years.

"We do this to make sure they are registered properly. We don't want some of the problems they had in other areas," Summers said

He referenced the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard, a 31-year-old California woman who was abducted when she was 11 by a couple who made her sleep in a tent in their backyard for more than 18 years.

One of Dugard's abductors was a registered sex offender. If California compliance officers were doing their job properly, they would have noticed that a child was living on the premises, Summers said.

"He had been on probation and parole and they still missed that tent in the backyard," he said. "We are trying to avoid stuff like that here."

When a countywide sweep is conducted, all of the sex offenders are grouped on a map by their geographical location. The groups are then assigned to a trooper who leads a team, along with a U.S. Marshal, to work the cases.

Troopers check the offender's premises to monitor who is living there and they also check vehicles to see who they are registered to. They also make sure Internet access is documented because some offenders register their home Internet, but neglect to register the Internet on their cell phones, he said.

Those offenders charged with child pornography or other computer-related crimes are put into a separate group and investigated by officers with computer forensic knowledge. The computers are checked for history and deleted files, he said.

Friday's sweep netted one arrest. It was lad by the State Police, the U.S. Marshals, the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and about 10 officers from the State Police Crimes Against Children Unit, the State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the State Police Hinton Detachment, the state Parole Office and the Summers County Sheriff's Department.

Can Mahmet "Johnny" Crawford, 34 of Hinton, was charged Friday with one count of failing to update information about his physical residency.

Summers said he researched and found that Crawford had previous charges for failure to comply and he will bring a second count against Crawford.

If convicted, Crawford can be imprisoned for up to 25 years. ..Source.. by Travis Crum

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