Flaws Found In Sex Offender Database
System Doesn't Provide Important Information
More than one million people a month log on to the Texas Department of
Public Safety's sex offender database -- making it the easiest and fastest way for residents to find out if criminals are living in their neighborhoods. But what if the information you were getting is wrong, leaving you dangerously uninformed about who's living next door?
Tony Kovaleski and the News2Houston Investigators tested the accuracy of the information provided by D.P.S. and found serious flaws.
They randomly chose ten names from the more than 4,300 registered sex offenders living in Harris County and went knocking on doors.
They found that the D.P.S.'s Web site, in some cases, is providing wrong or partial addresses, even addresses that don't exist.
"You should not look at the Web page and sit there and say well I don't have any sex offenders living next to me or in my area so therefore I don't have to worry about my child. That's an incorrect statement," Sgt. Jim Durbin with the Harris County Sheriff's Department says.
The Investigators took their findings to D.P.S. headquarters in
Austin. Officials with the D.P.S. admit that the agency has no way of verifying whether the information provided to them is accurate. "I think it's as accurate as we're able to make it," Tela Mange with the DPS says.
Mange places the responsibility of verifying the information on the
shoulders of local law enforcement. However, local law enforcement complains that it doesn't have the money or the manpower to keep up with the hundreds of registered sex offenders moving in to our area.
Some changes are now in the works. The D.P.S. is working on a system
that will allow individual police agencies to directly enter information into the sex offender database.
Harris County is also in the process of creating it's own sex offender Web site.
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Copyright 2003 by Click2Houston.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Copyright 2003 by Click2Houston.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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