WICHITA, Kan. — More than 1300 registered sex offenders live in Sedgwick County, but sex offender locator websites and apps can struggle to track where offenders actually live.

To understand the problems, you must first know how sex offenders register.

Part of the deal when someone is convicted of a sex crime in Kansas is that they have to register as a sex offender each quarter and on their birthday with their local sheriff’s office or tribal police department.

One example of the inaccuracies of the registered offender search website that’s run by the state of Kansas is the case of Kelly Farr. Farr is a registered offender currently facing two counts of raping a 12-year-old girl. For three weeks after Farr posted bail, the state’s online offender registry indicated he was in the Sedgwick County Jail, when he was actually more than 250 miles away in his hometown of Leoti, Kan.

The Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office informed the state of Farr’s new address when he was locked up, but not when he was released. The oversight was later corrected because KAKE News started asking questions about Farr’s actual whereabouts.

When asked for comment on the delay, and whether it was acceptable, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett responded, “If you want a quote from someone as to what is acceptable I’d refer you to the KBI.”

Sheriff’s offices in Kansas are required by law to report offender information to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation so that the KBI can run this searchable database.

It can take weeks to update the current addresses of offenders on the state’s site, because many sheriff’s offices in Kansas mail the documents containing updated offender addresses to the KBI in Topeka, where the information is held until it’s manually processed. In March, the KBI acknowledged there was backlog of paper documents of “about two weeks.” The backlog has since been eliminated, said Leslie Moore, KBI Information Services Division Director.

Further investigation of the KBI’s online offender registry found 24 inmates listed as being in the Sedgwick County Jail, were not.

Multiple attempts to discuss the problems with KBI Director Kirk Thompson in person were unsuccessful.

Apps also have problems

Offender Locator Lite is the most popular sex offender search app on iTunes, but it also shows some outdated addresses. KAKE News found one offender the app showed was in the Sedgwick County Jail, that was actually living in a home in south Wichita. KAKE News verified the location by visiting the house, confirming the location posted on the KBI’s website.

This offender app pulls its information from state databases and third party sources according to Barrett Wakefield with ThinAir Wireless, which owns the app.

“Each state offender registry is different and each are constantly changing the way they store information, so this is a challenge,” said Wakefield, Chief Information Officer of ThinAir.

“Our app is unique in that we allow our users to report inaccurate information right from the application,” Wakefield said. ” This ‘crowd source’ check has been very helpful to us in identifying areas that need updating.”

Barrett said the inaccurate address of the sex offender was due to outdated information, and the address of the offender referred to earlier has been corrected.

Bottom line:

Sex offender locator sites and apps don’t always have the most up-to-date addresses for offenders. Although Kansas law requires sheriff’s offices to provide the state with updated sex offender information, the law has loopholes that don’t require sheriff’s offices to provide a sex offender’s new address if they’ve been incarcerated for three days or less, or if they were transferred to another correctional facility.

The KBI online offender registry would be more up-to-date if Kansas sheriff’s offices would provide offender addresses electronically, which is not currently required by law.

Contact your local lawmaker if you feel the law should be changed.

 

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