This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2005, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Dale May worries about lurking pedophiles. As security coordinator for the Davis School District, that's his job.
To protect students, he relies on Utah's sex offender registry for important information - addresses, photographs, vehicle descriptions. But the registry is not always accurate. Take the case of Kevin Heath.
Heath was convicted in 1982 of forcible sexual abuse, a third-degree felony and an offense that requires him to register as a sex offender.
Eight years later, Heath showed up at Woods Cross High School - as a representative for the Junior Miss National Drill Pageant. He lured girls to his home to talk about music and choreography. Although the girls were not molested, Heath said some "unsettling" things to them, according to May.
May subsequently found Heath's name on the sex offender registry but discovered the information was wrong: The sex offender registry listed a Sandy address when, in fact, Heath was living in Salt Lake City.
The problem was not an isolated case. In Utah, at least 640 registered sex offenders are not living at the addresses they've provided to the register. Though Congress has required states to keep a sex offender registry, it has not provided money to keep tabs on every offender.
"When we find out someone is in noncompliance, we don't have the resources to send out a group of fugitive finders and track people down. It just doesn't happen," says Scott Carver, director of the Utah Department of Corrections.
They may number 1,900: About 25 percent of Utah prisoners are sex offenders - among the highest percentage of any state, says Corrections spokesman Jack Ford. Most will be released.
State law requires sex offenders to update their information annually and within 10 days of every move.
Many don't.
There's no way of knowing how many fail to register, Ford says. "It could be 10 percent; it could be higher."
Darren Swain, an agent for the Utah Division of Adult Probation and Parole, puts the number much higher, estimating that two to three out of 10 sex offenders' addresses are wrong.
That means 1,280 to 1,920 - out of Utah's total sex offender population of about 6,400 - are out of compliance.
Still more slip into Utah unannounced. Some are sneaking in from California, where in 2003 state officials acknowledged they had lost track of some 28,000 sex offenders.
Utah sex offenders are also moving state to state, some without detection. Just last month, Idaho law enforcement officials discovered a Driggs man, who was convicted of three child molestation charges in 1991 in Utah, had been living unregistered in their state for eight years.
"We're expecting the most secretive offender to be truthful with us about where they're living at when they've committed the most heinous crimes on victims in our community," Swain says. "We're expecting them to come in and say, 'Yeah, I'm living here.' "
When Swain isn't hunting down his probationers and parolees, he's building a working file of sex offenders who have disappeared from the public's view.
Daniel Jerome is one of them. Once investigated in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, the 35-year-old was convicted of two counts each of attempted forcible sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a minor in 1996.
Jerome last registered in June, according to state records, but he has since absconded.
"It's tough to just set your case load aside and go out and do this, and that's what I've been trying to do," Swain says. "It's frustrating because I feel an important part of the job is public safety. If our registry is not accurate and the public is depending on it, who is supposed to do it?"
Underfunded, understaffed: Last year, Corrections sent a batch of 6,400 registry letters to sex offenders, asking them to verify or update their information. Nearly 700 were returned undeliverable.
Others came back with messages, such as "Go to hell. I'm not registering," says Corrections spokesman Ford.
Most of the letters that were mailed back were not checked for accuracy.
"If we get a letter back, we don't go out and verify it. We do not have resources to do that," Carver says. "We are compliant with the statute as it's written."
Failing to register as a sex offender is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by a mandatory 90 days in jail and one year of probation.
But few are prosecuted, Carver says. The federal government grants little money for enforcement.
If the state Legislature wanted every sex offender supervised, it would have to allocate funding to hire an additional 60 people to do the work, Carver says.
"That's $4 million a year."
In the meantime, Adult Probation and Parole agents - who say they already are juggling large case loads - try to keep an eye on those sex offenders who are on supervised release.
"We stretch our resources pretty good," says William Fowlke, director of Adult Probation and Parole.
The problem is not unique to Utah, says Laura Ahearn, director of Parents for Megan's Law, a Stony Brook, N.Y.-based watchdog group.
Nationwide, 550,000 people are registered sex offenders, but nearly 150,000, or 27 percent, have dropped off the states' radar screens, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics.
In a survey conducted in February 2003 by Parents for Megan's Law, the average noncompliance rate for each state was 24 percent.
"It takes a tragedy, a brutal murder of a child in a community, to say, 'It's now time for us to shift the resources from one budget to another,' " Ahearn says.
The registry: Who is on it? Conceived in 1987, Utah's sex offender registry began as an investigative tool for law enforcement.
The Utah Department of Corrections, as a result, became a repository for sex offenders' names, addresses and offenses - a one-stop shop of suspects for police officers investigating sex crimes.
Then, in 1996, the registry became available to the public under Megan's Law, a federal law named after Megan Nicole Kanka, of New Jersey, who was raped and murdered by a two-time convicted pedophile living across the street.
Of the 6,400 people on the Utah's registry, 1,584 are still in prison. An additional 783 are on probation, 655 are on parole and 2,900 have been discharged and are no longer under the jurisdiction of the Utah Department of Corrections.
Another 50 have not yet been sentenced and 408 have moved in from another state and registered.
Not included in those numbers are:
l Those convicted in a federal court for crimes committed on Native American reservations.
l Sex offenders who, because of a computer program that did not recognize their offenses, were inadvertently left out.
l Out-of-state sex offenders who don't bother to notify authorities when they show up.
l Those who are charged with a registerable sex offense but, as part of a plea bargain, admit guilt to a lesser crime.
While some states include only the most dangerous offenders in their registries, Utah statute requires nearly every sex offender - from the armed rapist to the consumer of child pornography - to be included, no matter their perceived risk to the public.
Sex offenders on probation or parole are assessed for risk, but for supervisory purposes only. That information is not made available to the public, Fowlke says.
Swain says every sex offender should be treated the same - a credible threat.
"Every sex offender is unique. Everybody acts different under different circumstances in life, and that applies to sex offenders too. These guys don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't mean you throw eggs at their house or stare at them like they're a three-headed monster, but you need to protect your children," he says.
Concerns of vigilantism associated with the sex offender registry are real, however. In Bellingham, Wash., last month a man posing as an FBI agent shot and killed two sex offenders in their home. The suspect told police he targeted the victims after reading about them on a sex offender registry. Every month, Utah's sex offender registry Web site - http://www.cr.ex.state.ut.us/community/sexoffenders/- receives about 20,000 hits, says Christine Mitchell, deputy director of the Department of Corrections.
People like May rely on it to identify predators who live nearby.
Some of them are parents of schoolchildren. May invites them to a meeting with himself and a principal, during which the registered sex offender is advised to stay clear of the school without prior permission or face trespassing charges.
"Now the parent isn't just showing up to be an aide in the class, and this is where some of the parents really have heartburn," he says.
Bill aims to close loopholes: Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch is cosponsoring legislation that would require each state to add information on sex offenders to a national database coordinated by the U.S. Attorney General's Office. The database would include photographs and be searchable by the public.
The bill would also make failing to register a felony with a possible sentence of 10 years in prison. In most states, it is a misdemeanor.
"This [bill] represents a complete overhaul of our nation's laws addressing sex offenders," Hatch says.
"We're not going to have anymore 150,000 people just ignoring the law."
Under the bill, sex offenders would also be required to register in prison and for 20 years thereafter. Repeat offenders would be required to register for life.
Swain, the Utah probation officer, questions whether the new federal law would do any good.
"To me, they're just feel-good laws," Swain says. "They look good on paper, and it makes the public feel good."
Task forces, such as one that meets weekly in Davis County to talk about sex offenders in the community, would be more effective, he says. And the responsibilities of the Department of Corrections, which manages the sex offender registry, should be shared among several agencies.
In the meantime, Swain continues to track the missing sex offenders in the hope of finding them - before they strike again.
A Utah company aims to keep a tighter track on sex offenders with its TrackerPAL device, a combination of computer and cellular technology.
6,400
number of registered sex offenders in Utah
25
percentage of Utah prisoners who are sex offenders
28,000
sex offenders California lost track of in 2003
60
additional people the director of the Utah Department of Corrections figures he needs to monitor every offender
$4
amount in millions those additional workers would cost per year
550,0003
number of registered sex offenders nationwide
150,000
number nationally who are unaccounted for