Sex offenders who fled Katrina are tough to track - Yahoo! News
Sex offenders who fled Katrina are tough to track - Yahoo! News: "BOSTON (Reuters) - As many as 4,500 sex offenders are among tens of thousands of people evacuated by Hurricane Katrina, prison officials say, worsening what critics call an already patchy national database on sexual crimes.
Louisiana State Police say 3,300 to 4,500 sex offenders lived in areas swamped by Katrina. Of those, about 270 usually check in at parole offices in five districts shut by Katrina and are considered at higher risk of repeating their crimes.
From Texas to Massachusetts, authorities have struggled to identify sex offenders among evacuees -- with varying success. And Hurricane Rita, steaming through the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas coast and western Louisiana, makes that task harder by delaying the reopening of New Orleans.
'You have all these offenders in that area who could be anywhere,' said Laura Ahearn, head of Parents for Megan's Law, a New York-based child advocacy group. 'There is no mechanism in place for them to be registering as they should be.'
To track them down, Louisiana's corrections officials are visiting shelters and telephoning relatives of sex offenders. But they said many sex offenders evacuated after the storm are failing to check in with police or may have left Louisiana."
Louisiana State Police say 3,300 to 4,500 sex offenders lived in areas swamped by Katrina. Of those, about 270 usually check in at parole offices in five districts shut by Katrina and are considered at higher risk of repeating their crimes.
From Texas to Massachusetts, authorities have struggled to identify sex offenders among evacuees -- with varying success. And Hurricane Rita, steaming through the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas coast and western Louisiana, makes that task harder by delaying the reopening of New Orleans.
'You have all these offenders in that area who could be anywhere,' said Laura Ahearn, head of Parents for Megan's Law, a New York-based child advocacy group. 'There is no mechanism in place for them to be registering as they should be.'
To track them down, Louisiana's corrections officials are visiting shelters and telephoning relatives of sex offenders. But they said many sex offenders evacuated after the storm are failing to check in with police or may have left Louisiana."
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