Sex offender registry still not finished

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By Abby Rogers
Abby@MarylandReporter.com

Despite all of the work done last session to update Maryland’s sex offender registry, the state still isn’t meeting all of the federal standards and may lose some federal funds, a Senate committee was told Tuesday.

The state is over and above federal standards with some of its sex offender registry standards — such as the physical description, address, employment, and vehicle information of offenders — David Wolinski of the state’s Criminal Justice Information System told the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.  But it falls short on registering juveniles.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 mandates juvenile offenders aged 14 years or older be listed for their lifetimes. This can be downgraded to 25 years in some circumstances.

handcuffs

Photo by Mike, Txspiked on Flickr.

“They didn’t find us substantially in compliance in the one item, and that single item only,” Wolinski told the committee.

If Maryland is not compliant with this part of federal law by June 30 of this year, the state will lose 10% of its Byrne grant funding in the next fiscal year, which translates to about $2 million. The federal grant funds various law enforcement programs.

No bill has been proposed yet to correct the situation. Legislative analysts for the department have not put one forward because they did not know they were out of compliance until after submitting the legislative agenda to Gov. Martin O’Malley.

“We did everything we can,” Wolinski said.

There was also some discussion at the meeting about how to describe an offender’s crimes on the Department of Public Safety’s website. Wolinski said the department is working on creating a plain-language list of crimes to put on the site.

Democrat Sen. James Brochin of Baltimore County said he could not understand what the department needs to “figure out.”

“If they’ve been convicted and it’s consistent with the statement of charges, why can’t you just put the statement of charges there of what they’ve been convicted of?” he asked.

Wolinski said it isn’t quite that simple. He has to consult with attorneys and victims’ advocates, among others. Plus, there are about 60 to 70 people entering sex offender registrations into the system, and not all of them have a uniform method of capturing charge information that would be both informative and sensitive to the victim.

People who live next door to sex offenders want to know what they did because they have children, Brochin countered.

About The Author

Len Lazarick

len@marylandreporter.com

Len Lazarick was the founding editor and publisher of MarylandReporter.com and is currently the president of its nonprofit corporation and chairman of its board He was formerly the State House bureau chief of the daily Baltimore Examiner from its start in April 2006 to its demise in February 2009. He was a copy editor on the national desk of the Washington Post for eight years before that, and has spent decades covering Maryland politics and government.

1 Comment

  1. Keith_Richard_Radford_Jr

    background checks make idiots rich with worthless info because people change from day to day

    I remember living behind a church were Brian Lamb, and a bunch of these Cspan guys used too have a wood shop. At that place of residence my mom thought I needed an exorcist, after playing in the mud the way very young children will sometimes with my uncle who mixed a glass of this red clay in water and told me it was chocolate milk.

    After drinking it as he would force me to do thing all the time like the time he made me cut off the limb I was sitting on and the device came out of my shoulder being more powerful and in control I broke out with ring worm all over my body and my mom told me it was writing that could not be understood so she had priests come in from the church.

    I guess my Dad did not know that one of the people at the church was in line for being my new dad but that was not in the cards because I guess he felt I was in need of discipline after an accident in the wood shop. I had been check out on the band saw by my grandfather who was a millwright in Arkansas and to do some jobs the blade shield had to be removed. Some kids came in and wanted to use the saw, then got mad that I wanted to warn them to put the guard on and they told me they owned it all and I was not to tell them anything, and after this head strong kid cut his thumb off the other kids said they would tell their fathers it was all my fault, but it was not.

    I had a fever of well over a hundred and I was a bloody mess with the infection. The priests came in with outer guys and one had a camera. The priests would throw me across the room well the other snapped a picture. I would fall on furniture and the floor and they would tell me get on the bed, don’t get off the bed very loud and when I would crawl back on the bed they would pick me up and throw me over and over again well the other priest would snap another picture and this went on till one guy said we have enough picture and they left me in the blood, mud, and bedding, then my aunt came in with some save that was for ring worm.

    She spread the save and kidded me about dying when the rings got to my heart. After getting well I went back to the wood shop and the guys had made me a special shield and gave me my sword which were both made of wood and I had to fight one of the guys in my shorts because I did not want to remove them and the other guy was naked (he know who he is). I was still not up too speed and lost the battle. They then called me the bad guy and this group was supposed to be my gate keeper or something like that appointed by the priests. My Dad did not like them much also but that did not matter much because someone at the church was going to be my new dad till he said no, my mom cried allot, my dad was gone, I healed up, but I still have a case.

    Please know that there is nothing any of you can do to make what you and the rest of the ones involved can do to make this my fault. See at the time I was about seven years old. Since then the church has made an effort to kill me, to the extent of trying to pass laws to kill sex offenders.

    Come on, keep it up, keep pushing laws that you as a group of very said individuals know have no value. Take me too court so I can own a network. I have met with your staff members in private since along with military personal and others.

    Now lets note when this happened I was only a small child being thrown around a room like a rag doll by people that started all this clear back in the late fifty’s and the steering by very bad people that think abusing kids to make laws to stop abuse, Ha! these laws are bogus and the fact that they can not kill gays anymore does not justify the use of laws too kill someone set up by them to create some worthless set of laws by a fusion of church and state is wrong and realty designed by them to harm us all.

    My case was pragmatic but more than that I know what was done and who was involved making vendetta laws that really have no bases in truth, and are based in lies.

    Keith Richard Radford Jr

    PSS don’t be cowards, let me know you received this e-mail through a response.

    It’s time to communicate

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