Pa. upgrades Megan's Law information site

INQUIRER HARRISBURG BUREAU

HARRISBURG - Want to see how close a registered sex offender lives to your home or your child's school?

You can get a better sense with Pennsylvania's newly revamped Megan's Law website, which provides the public with information on 10,700 registered sex offenders, including their residence and place of employment.

The site - which came under fire last year from Auditor General Jack Wagner for being less than user-friendly - now includes mapping tools that allow a user to see the locations of sex offenders who live from a half-mile to five miles from their home.

The maps "give more clarity and provide a radius that people can view," said Lt. Myra Taylor, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania State Police, which operates the site at www.pameganslaw.state.pa.us/

Before, the website provided sex offenders' addresses only.

The upgrade also features improved photos and a search feature that provides a list of names with similar spellings in the event a user does not know the exact spelling of an offender's surname.

"This means that even if a user misspells the name of an offender in the system, the new site will be more likely to make a match and provide information about the offender," acting State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said in a news release.

Wagner, whose report last year found the Megan's Law site rife with technological problems that rendered it less than useful, praised the upgrades.

"We are delighted to see the dramatic improvements to the website in a multitude of ways that enhance public safety," Wagner said in an interview Wednesday.

Wagner, who issued his original audit of the Megan's Law site in 2006 and released a follow-up report last year, said that while Pennsylvania has jumped from having one of the weaker Megan's Law sites to having one of the better, it is still "a work in progress."

He said he would like to see multiple photos of offenders in the event that they change their appearance, and provide a complete record of an offender's criminal history, not simply a single offense.

The state House recently passed legislation to close loopholes in Megan's Law. One bill would require sex offenders without a residence to register every 30 days with the state police as transients. Another would provide for specific criminal sentences for sex offenders who fail to comply with registration requirements.

In addition, Noonan said, the agency hopes to get approval from the General Assembly to add a feature that will let people receive notification about Megan's Law registrants by e-mail or text message.