MA: Tracking Sex Offenders: Chelsea PD first in state to try new tool

[Boston 25 News]

The Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board is under scrutiny for losing track of hundreds of sex offenders. Just last month, the state auditor testified on Beacon Hill the state sex offender registry board does not have addresses for more than 1,700 sex offenders.

Now, one local agency is using a new tool to track them.

The Chelsea Police Department is the first in Massachusetts to use the program that’s both an investigative tool and a public alert system.

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Another drum roll for nothing, except for ratings.

Welcome to the 21st Century Chelsea

Now the real question is for RCs and Chelsea: 1 if by land, 2 if by sea

Hmm i thought the registry was supposed to be in the background and people were supposed to go check it out by themselves. This seems a little more than regulatory and pushing the info onto the public. How do they know how dangerous a person is or isn’t going to be? Do they have a magical crystal ball? Have they been assessed for how much of a risk they are? Maybe if they took some of these draconic reguations off of people they would have a better chance of reintegrating and living a somewhat normal life. Oh yeah I forgot we are the unforgiven. 😕

Would someone explain the gist of the video? I can’t watch it on the very slow connection I’m on right now. Thanks.

Do they post the person’s next of kin information or just collect it for internal use?

What if the whole losing track of registrants is nothing but just a scare tactic, just to scare people and trip them off? This is why public notifications should have never been implemented in the first place because people will use it on someone that they may not like that they recognize from some online registry (which could be obsolete and/or taken by some watchdog group as a target list) and denounce that person that they found online.

““Even if it catches that one person that slipped through the cracks that’s worth it,” Houghton said.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…. maybe in their imaginary world of make believe?

Um, yeah.. NEWS FLASH: The registry doesn’t minimize risk! It doesn’t offer parents a “layer of protection” to prevent the same thing the Walshes and Kankas went through.

It’s a totally manufactured issue. Fabricated fear.

“OffenderWatch” tracks next of kin, shoe size??? What the F#%*? Can’t wait till the next of kin hear about this!
And the police captain mentions that some of these people (registrants) are bad people, recidivists…
He fails to mention that a MAJORITY of these people are GOOD people, who may have done one bad thing in the course of their lifetime.
OffenderWatch isn’t a helpful tool for the police, it’s another pitchfork added to a witch-hunt that needs to end.

These Dummies are tracking a group of individuals who rarely re offend. Lol…JACKASSES that need to be STOPPED!!!!

The Sacramento County Sheriff uses OffenderWatch.

– The public may sign up for email alerts

— for all registrants (?) within a certain radius of any address. I will have to check PC 290.46 again, but I think that the DOJ authorizes law enforcement to actively publicize a registrant’s info ONLY if there is justification on an individual basis. This blanket push strategy is not authorized by California Law.

— by individual registrant. Not sure how this works once the person moves outside of the jurisdiction

– A search of “City of Sacramento” produces 2,015 profiles on OffenderWatch, vs. 2,005 on the official Megans Law web site (check at your own risk).

– The Sacramento County Sheriff OffenderWatch web site does NOT list the year of release or subsequent incarcerations for felony convictions, or the Static-99 score if it exists (as required by PC 290.46).

– The Sacramento County Sheriff OffenderWatch web site lists information beyond the official Megans Law web site in the Tattoo / Scars section by listing the actual graphic.

Anyone have actual real life experience with this?

Next of kin? Well, that should increase the numbers of people who dislike the registry to untold numbers. Someone should suggest they also add friends, acquaintances, co-workers, all professionals who assist them (doctors, lawyers, etc), and anyone they’ve ever spoken to. Let’s bring the sex offender registry to 325,145,963 people total (not too coincidentally, the population of the U.S.).

“….we are working on a system that has too much potential for human error,” said Chelsea Police Captain Keith Houghton. “It’s an administrative process that we lose control of at the police department.”

“Chelsea residents can sign up to receive alerts when a sex offender moves into their neighborhood and communicate information about an individual directly to the police department through that site.”

So #1: The police chief says this administrative process of keeping track of registered citizens is too complicated for the police to handle.
#2: So they’re going to put it in the hands of neighbors to do compliance checks 24 hours a day, watch all these “scary bad guys”, and then report everything they see back to the law enforcement. Police won’t even have to go out and do compliance checks anymore!
And all for bargain price of $2,000 a year! Imagine the money the police department will save!

“Instead of capturing just height, weight, where the offender lives and where the offender works, we’re getting next of kin…everything down to shoe size,” Kirhagis said.

This is from the article. I don’t know about you, but it is scary to see that everyone will be able to see next of kin information too. Safety issues for sex offender families are not taken into account i guess.

Someone should submit a FOIA request to OffenderWatch asking for the names and addresses of all employees at the business. Their revenue comes entirely from the government and their data and services is entirely dependent on government data. They are effectively operating like a government agency.

its all ready bad enough the way things are for RC’s , most of the people that use this stupid crap are a$$ holes that are not even victims ! where I live its drug dealers spreading rumors day in day out , stinking rats . last time something came down over this whole registry crap here , this drug dealer had his fat mouth ol lady and a friend of hers stand in front of my son and his wifes room and start yelling so my son would come out and tell them to go yell in front of their own place , and then her thug boy friend sucker punched my son , full well knowing I could not prove what were doing , setting me up to come outside and get cot up in all of it knowing I will go to jail , and you can bet if I would have got in it I would have went to jail , the drug dealer and his fat mouth women moved out after he went to jail , now he moved back with the same with the same bag of weak ass tricks , what I don’t get is why the hell did my land lord rent to this thug again ? all the same this registry needs to come down like yesterday !

They lost track of 1700 and none offended while not being monitored.