State adds crime history to sex-offender Web site/Fl State adds crime history to sex-offender Web site
The listing now also includes information on offenders' vehicles, including tag numbers.
Bill Kaczor | the Associated Press
TALLAHASSEE -- A state Internet site that allows parents to track sex offenders has been expanded to include details on the seriousness of their past crimes and their vehicle information, including tag numbers.
The crime-history information should help those who have committed minor offenses avoid being unfairly labeled as pedophiles and sexual predators, officials said Tuesday.
"You can't lump every sex offender in the same pile -- some are dangerous, some are not," said Don Ryce, whose 9-year-old son, Jimmy, was raped and murdered in Miami-Dade County in 1995.
"Why stigmatize them?"
Ryce and his wife, Claudine, established the Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abductions in Vero Beach after their son's murder.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Web site, fdle.state.fl.us, was expanded without fanfare to add crime details.
It lists the date and court outcome of each crime, the jurisdiction and case number.
It also provides the text of each law violated and links to court clerk sites in Florida.
It does not provide that information for crimes committed outside Florida.
Agency officials and Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, meanwhile, announced the new vehicle information during a news conference in his office. Gallagher last year had suggested adding that data.
"This enhancement will empower Floridians with greater information about the people that live in their neighborhoods so that our children, our seniors and our loved ones can feel informed and protected," Gallagher said.
Gallagher denied the announcement was designed to burnish his anti-crime image in his campaign for governor.
His major opponent for the Republican nomination is Attorney General Charlie Crist, also a member of the Cabinet, which oversees FDLE.
The Web site provides the make, year, model, color and tag number of each vehicle owned by a sex offender and similar information for boats.
Ryce said in a telephone interview that vehicle information also may lead to the safe recovery of abducted children.
"Very seldom are sexual predators going to grab a child and walk down the street holding them," he said.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-offenders2606jul26,0,4312994.story?track=rss
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