Many states resist federal sex offender law

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Nearly three dozen states have failed to meet the conditions of a 2006 federal law that requires them to join a nationwide program to track sex offenders, including five states that have given up on the effort because of persistent doubts about how it works and how much it costs.

The states, including some of the nation's largest, stand to lose millions of dollars in government grants for law enforcement, but some have concluded that honoring the law would be far more expensive than simply living without the money.

"The requirements would have been a huge expense," said Doris Smith, who oversees grant programs at the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. Lawmakers weren't willing to spend that much, even though the state will lose $226,000.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, named after a boy kidnapped from a Florida mall and killed in 1981, was supposed to create a uniform system for registering and tracking sex offenders linking all 50 states, plus U.S. territories and tribal lands. When President George W. Bush signed it into law, many states quickly realized they would have to overhaul their sex offender registration systems to comply.

Some lawmakers determined that the program would cost more to implement than to ignore. Others resisted the burden it placed on offenders, especially certain juveniles who would have to be registered for life. In Arizona, for instance, offenders convicted as juveniles can petition for removal after rehabilitation.

The deadline to comply with the law was July 2011.

Thirty-four states have still been unable to meet the full requirements, and five of those have decided they won't even try. Arizona, Arkansas, California, Nebraska and Texas will instead forfeit 10 percent of the funding made available through the Justice Department.

Richard Kishur, an Oklahoma City counselor, said his biggest reservation was that the law categorized offenders by the crime they commit, not the risk they actually pose. "What we need to do is . . . apply resources to people who are dangerous and quit wasting our money and time on people who aren't," he said.