Congratulations to Ohio for being the first state in the country to reach “substantial implementation” of the provisions of a federal law cracking down on sex offenders (FYI Screening, Inc. is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.)
The state is largely in compliance with the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, which is part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, according to Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush on July 27, 2006.
The legislation organizes sex offenders into three tiers:
- Tier 3 offenders (the most serious tier) must update their whereabouts every three months with lifetime registration requirements.
- Tier 2 offenders must update their whereabouts every six months with 25 years of registration
- Tier 1 offenders (which includes minors as young as 14 years of age) must update their whereabouts every year with 15 years of registration.
Failure to register and update information is a felony under the law. It also created a national sex offender registry and instructs each state and territory to apply identical criteria for posting offender data on the Internet (i.e., offender’s name, address, date of birth, place of employment, photograph, etc.)
States, tribes and territories must “substantially implement” the sex-offender law by July 26, 2010, or face a 10 percent reduction in federal Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funding.
Source: The Columbus Dispatch