Allen County preparing sex offender site (IN)
Allen preparing sex offender site By Masaaki Harada The Journal Gazette The Allen County Sheriff’s Department is launching a Web site listing all sex offenders who are living in or are assumed to have some ties with Allen County. The link for the registry will be posted at the sheriff’s department Web site, www.allencountysheriff.com, as early as this month, Cpl. Jeffrey Shimkus said. The county’s Web site will enhance some information that’s in the state’s sex offender registry Web site. The state site, www.insor.org, has evolved from a previous version with limited search options. With the state’s new version, users can search for registered sex offenders by address, name, ZIP code or city. The Web site displays a map around the location the users enter with dots that indicate sex offenders’ homes, workplaces or schools. When users put the computer cursor on the dots, a box pops up displaying the offender’s information, including a photo. Despite its user-friendliness, the state Web site is still missing some information essential for Allen County residents, Shimkus said, including pictures of offenders whose whereabouts are unknown. Another problem, Shimkus said, is that offender information on the state Web site can be easily overwritten by other county police. Users can lose track of offenders who have moved out of the county, though the offender may still have some Allen County ties, Shimkus said. The county Web site will have a search capability equivalent to that of the state site – with the most updated information – for offenders currently registered in Allen County and those who may have some connections with Allen County addresses, he said. One feature of the county Web site is its e-mail notification function, which will automatically send subscribers an e-mail alert each time a new offender moves into a neighborhood. The state Web site will add the same service in April. Users of the county Web site, however, can register as many addresses as they want for reference, unlike the state site, which allows only one address, Shimkus said. With this function, Shimkus said, school administrators can put addresses for each school bus stop and will be automatically notified when sex offenders move within a certain range from those stops. “When you look at the software we are looking at, you are not going to have the same bells and whistles” as the state’s Web site, Shimkus said. “But information contained there is a lot more accurate because we have complete control over it.” mharada@jg.net http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/local/13909009.htm