State plans online sex offender registry

PORTLAND – Officials plan to put information about the state’s 1,200 registered sex offenders on the Internet to allow residents to easily determine if a convicted offender lives in their neighborhood.

The Department of Public Safety plans to launch the online sex offender registry today.

The Legislature instructed the department to have a site up and running by the end of the year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such Internet registries do not infringe on sex offenders’ constitutional rights.

Some jurisdictions – including Portland, South Portland, Saco and Kennebec County – already post sex-offender information on the Internet. The new site will cover all sex offenders registered in Maine.

The new registry will include the registered offenders’ names, ages and birth dates, where they live, where they work or attend school, and which offense they were convicted of. Photographs will be posted when they are available.

“It will provide anyone wishing to gain access to this information an easier method of doing so as opposed to the method one could have always engaged in – going from courthouse to courthouse trying to pull records that are in paper form,” said Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara.

The so-called “Megan’s Law,” which has been adopted in all 50 states, requires convicted sex offenders to register with authorities so the public can be alerted if a potentially dangerous offender lives in their neighborhood.

The law was named after Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old who was raped and murdered in New Jersey. Her parents were unaware that a neighbor, who was eventually charged with the crime, had been convicted twice before for sex crimes.

Online information about sex offenders is required or expressly permitted in 36 states, according to an analysis earlier this year by the University of Florida.

Cantara said the registry will not take the place of local notification efforts when a sex offender moves to a community.

“What this registry will permit will be the citizens’ ability to access information, because that’s what the citizen wants,” he said. “How that plays out on the local level is something to be determined by local authorities.”

For more in formation, visit http:///www.maine.gov/dps.