In her presentation at the recently held police conference on Saipan, Seman said the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 made it possible for authorities to track down fugitive sex offenders.
She said in the CNMI and 25 states, failure to comply with the state registration requirements for sex offenders may be treated as a misdemeanor, but by July 2009, the law will mandate the creation of a national sex offender registry database and Web site to require states to make changes in their sex registry laws.
“One of the requirements of the Act is to make failure to comply with the sex offender registration a felony in every state,” she said.
The Department of Public Safety launched its Web site, www.dps.gov.mp last month, but its sex offender registry section is still undergoing construction.
Then-DPS Commissioner Claudio Norita said they only needed to “iron out some issues” before all the names and photographs of the registered sex offenders in the CNMI could be posted on the Web site.
In the CNMI, Seman said the contents of the sex offender registry are being provided to schools, day care centers and youth recreation centers.
As of July 17, 2007, a total of 644,865 registered sex offenders were residing all over the 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The records show that over 100,000 of these sex offenders were non-compliant and many were missing.
