Sex offender registry gets tweaks to aid in search
Pennsylvania residents can find the number of registered sex offenders living just half a mile from their home as part of the states revamped sex offender registry website.
The sites improvements include the ability to search for sex offenders by municipality and within a specific radius. The site can also find offenders even if the user misspells the name.
York City Detective First Class Dana Ward said the site appears to be easier for people to navigate. Using the site is important for the safety of residents and their children, he said.
I think the tweaks are good, he said. Through my investigations, I hear people look up (sex offenders) all the time.
The site includes a radius-search function that allows the user to enter an address and establish a search radius of half-mile, one mile, three miles or five miles, acting State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said in a news release.
People can also search for offenders who live or attend school within the designated radius. The site returns a listing and map of offenders.
The site has a Soundex feature that takes a name entered by the user and provides a list of individuals with that name and with similar-sounding names, according to the news release.
This means that even if a user misspells the name of an offender in the system, the new site will be more likely to make a match and provide information about the offender, Noonan said.
Other upgrades: The upgraded site features geocoding and Google mapping of offender addresses. The site continues to provide the most current photographs of offenders.
As part of the upgrade, the system is now retaining each new photograph of offenders, which will be dated and displayed on the offenders page.
Residents can also submit anonymous tips regarding where offenders live.
Noonan said State Police hope to add an electronic community notification feature to the website that will allow users to receive public notifications about Megans Law offenders through e-mail or text messages using the states AlertPA system.
Action by the General Assembly would be required before such a feature can be enabled, he said.
Pennsylvanias Megans Law requires State Police to create and maintain a registry of people who live, work or attend school in the state and who have either been convicted of, entered a guilty plea or adjudicated delinquent of certain sexual offenses in the state.
The website is pameganslaw.state.pa.us.
Reach Amanda Dolasinski at 505-5434 or adolasinski@yorkdispatch.com.
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