Glynn County sex offender registry a model for state

Associated Press

A recent state audit gave the Glynn County Sheriff's Office sex offender registry top marks, and it's serving as a model for surrounding counties.

The audit noted that the state's list contained errors, outdated information and incomplete listings.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is responsible for the list, cited lack of funding and said the state had only two full-time staff members monitoring Georgia's nearly 20,000 sex offenders.

Glynn County Sheriff Wayne Bennett said his agency's registry was found to have no errors during its June audit.

The sheriff said offenders' addresses and places of employment are verified by a sheriff's deputy four times a year.

Homeless offenders are required to report at the sheriff's office every week to check in. If they fail to show up, they are locked up, Bennett said.

The Brunswick News reported that Bennett said the Georgia Crime Information Center, which audited the county's list, asked his office to help surrounding counties get their registries on track.

Glynn County deputies are helping agencies in Appling, Brantley, McIntosh, Ware and Wayne counties to set up more effective registries, the sheriff said.

Bennett said watching so many offenders with so few people is asking for disaster.

"To me, that's unacceptable," Bennett said. "I know they're in a budget crunch. We are too. But it's unacceptable to only have two people monitoring all those offenders."

The GBI noted that many small counties had trouble getting information to the state because they had old technology.

"I could just assume the majority of the problem is (surrounding counties) have outdated software and technology," Bennett said. "We have a programs analyst who created our software."

With the county's program, sex offender information is transmitted electronically to the state's crime center, so there is no paperwork to lose, he said.

The sheriff's website, which was updated at the beginning of 2010, can show people a map of all the offenders registered in the county by zip code.

———

Information from: The Brunswick News, http://www.thebrunswicknews.com