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Oregon Sex Offender List Criticised
January 22, 2014 posted by Steve Brownstein
Oregon has, per capita, more registered sex offenders than all but one other state. It also has one of the worst records in the country for following federal standards intended to keep sex offenders from moving to avoid supervision, and it has become a haven for offenders dodging stricter rules elsewhere, a newspaper investigation has concluded.
Oregon is two years behind entering names into its electronic database of registered sex offenders. It’s so out of date that local police don’t rely on it.
“We don’t like where we’re at,” said Capt. Calvin Curths, commander of the State Police criminal investigation division. “We’re trying to fix it.”
The registration unit has 12 people, but retirements and job changes last summer turned over three quarters of the staff. Only one person is now qualified to log in more than 1,200 offenders registering for the first time since 2011. Also in the queue: More than 13,000 updated change-of-address or annual registrations.
Oregon is among four states that have done the least to comply with registration and community notification guidelines under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act passed seven years ago to tighten a patchwork of state laws.
Only 19 states have substantially met the standards. A study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office showed Oregon has completed eight of the 14 guidelines.
States that don’t comply either lose 10 percent of an annual federal crime-fighting grant or, as in Oregon’s case, must use the 10 percent in compliance efforts.
The names, photos and criminal histories of only 649 of Oregon’s 25,354 sex offenders appear on the state’s public website.
Oregon law limits the list to sex offenders designated as predatory and includes other qualifications. Federal law calls for states to publicize all registered sex offender’s photos, names, addresses and places of employment, except for those convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses that involve an adult victim.
Oregon is out of step with federal classification rules that call for offenders to be put in one of three categories based on convictions.
