Editorial: Improving notification

Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2005 | 9:03 a.m.

Nevada's sex offender Web site -- nvsexoffenders.gov -- is potentially a great resource, particularly for parents who want to know whether people who have committed sex crimes live in their neighborhoods or near where their children attend school. The Web site lists the names, photos and addresses of those ex-convicts who pose a high risk to the public, but it doesn't include all people who have committed a sex crime -- and that is a weakness.

Donna Coleman, president of the Children's Advocacy Alliance in Henderson, a group that has sought to toughen sex-offender laws, says part of the problem occurs when sex offenders plead to lesser charges to escape harsher sentences. These plea agreements -- if they allow a felony sex charge to be reduced to a gross misdemeanor -- can enable sex offenders to elude being placed on the state's sex offender Web site, because the database lists only those with felony convictions. But a sexual predator who pleads to a lesser crime is just as likely to commit a similar act again as one who is convicted of a felony.

"We need to revisit the entire system and talk to the people in the trenches to see what's working and what's not," Coleman told the Reno Gazette-Journal in a story published over the weekend. We are glad that in October local law enforcement officials from Nevada plan to get together in Reno for a summit to do just that. State government should do what it takes to strengthen sex-offender notification laws, ensuring that the public is fully informed.