More data sought on sex offenders

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2004 | 11:08 a.m.

Addresses of Nevada's convicted sex offenders were supposed to be in the state's online database, but after successful lobbying for it, supporters and advocates of victims' rights realized that provision wasn't included in the legislation that created the Web site.

Authorities now are hoping to correct that problem. Currently only the offenders' ZIP codes are available to the public on the site, www. nvsexoffenders.gov.

"It was just one of those things," said Donna Coleman, president of the Children's Advocacy Alliance, who helped draft the legislation.

"It's something I hadn't caught, no one else caught. It was really an accident," she said.

Coleman, who helped get the database online, is working with Sen. Ray Rawson, R-Las Vegas, to draft legislation that would allow streets and block numbers to be posted.

The legislation would also require sex offenders to renew their driver's licenses once a year so the state can keep closer tabs on their addresses.

The proposed changes to the law also include doing away with the provision allowing offenders to be removed from the database 10 years after their conviction.

"We want to make it clear that Nevada is no longer a place where sex offenders can hide," Coleman said.

The site debuted in May. It can be searched by the offender's name, ZIP code, Social Security number and license plate number.

The site lists the ages of victims, the offenders' aliases, conviction information, home ZIP codes and employer ZIP codes, if applicable, of nearly 9,000 of the state's most serious sex offenders. It also provides photographs of some of their faces.

Visitors to the site expressed concern that just providing ZIP codes wasn't helpful. For example, 52 sex offenders are listed as living within the 89109 ZIP code, the area that includes the Strip.

"Based on the public's reaction we know people are clamoring for the addresses," Coleman said.

Rawson has said that citizens have the right to know if their neighbor is a sexual predator.

About 40 percent of the offenders have not kept the state up-to-date with their current address, and Coleman is hoping to remedy that by requiring sex offenders to renew their driver's licenses annually, as Arizona does, instead of every four years.

Officials also want to keep offenders in the system for longer than 10 years, when the information is sealed.

After William Neel was arrested last week in the sexual assault of a 9-year-old girl in a mobile home park laundry room, police discovered he had been convicted in 1991 of lewdness with a minor.

His records were sealed in 2001, but for two years before that he had not been complying with the law requiring him to keep officials notified of his address, Coleman said.

"I don't think we should reward people for being out of compliance," she said.