A number of registered sex offenders live near ASU and their student neighbors are often unaware of their criminal histories.
At least 74 registered sex offenders who have an intermediate or high risk of committing another offense have home addresses within five miles of the Tempe campus and are listed on a state Web site.
Local law enforcement agencies are required by state law to notify nearby residents, local schools and community groups when a Level 2 or Level 3 sex offender moves into an area.
But they are not required to notify residents who move into the neighborhood after the sex offender.
The state law that mandates community notification was implemented in 1996.
The federal legislation, which prompted the law, and the state measure are called "Megan's Law." Both were spurred by the 1994 rape and murder of Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old New Jersey girl. Kanka was killed by a neighbor who was a convicted sex offender.
Justice studies freshman Jeff Kasparek lives down the street from the listed residence of a man convicted of sexual conduct with a child and child molestation.
The man is listed as a Level 2 sex offender, denoting an intermediate risk of recidivism (relapse).
Kasparek moved into his current residence in May, two months after Tempe police mailed fliers to area residents concerning the sex offender, and he said he was unaware of the offender.
But he said the presence of a sex offender only concerns him to a point.
"It could be as harmless as something like statutory rape [involving a boyfriend and girlfriend with a few years age difference] whereas it could be something like someone was convicted of pedophilia," Kasparek said.
Natalie DeGraaf, a biochemistry junior who lives across the street from an offender's listed address, said she moved into her house more than a year ago and was also unaware of the offender's presence.
"The problem is that everybody around here changes houses so much," DeGraaf said. "For the next five houses down, it's all pretty much new tenants."
Tempe police do not make any adjustments to the community notification procedure because of the sometimes transitory nature of neighborhoods near campus, said Sgt. Dan Masters.
Val Biebrich, supervisor of the sex-offender compliance team at the Arizona Department of Public Safety, was unaware of any law enforcement agency in the state that distributes fliers at times other than when an offender moves into a neighborhood.
"No agency that I know of has the resources to do that," Biebrich said.
He said that in the past some agencies engaged in "de-notification," distributing flyers to announce that a sex offender had moved out of an area but that these efforts had "gone by the wayside" because of the strain on resources.
But in 2000, Arizona DPS launched an online database that makes information about Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders available to those who live outside of a community notification radius or who move into an area where a sex offender is already living.
"After the community notification is effected, the whole purpose of that Web site is to allow the public to have access [to the information] after the fact," Biebrich said.
Sex offenders are classified into notification categories based on 19 criteria that are considered effective predictors of future behavior, he said.
Since the risk assessment guidelines were revised in 2002, sex offenders have been classified based on their risk of committing another sex offense as well as their risk of general recidivism.
Criteria used in the assessment include the nature of the relationship between the offender and his or her victim, the age and gender of the victim and whether additional violence or threats of force were involved in the offense.
The Web site, www.azsexoffender.com, allows users to search for registered sex offenders living near an address or in a ZIP code and also provides the capability to search using an offender's last name.
Prior to the launch of the Web site, Biebrich said, people who wanted to know if a sex offender was already living in their neighborhood had "no way ... to find that out" because Arizona is a closed-record state that prohibits law enforcement agencies from releasing a person's criminal history to a private individual.
"Prior to Megan's Law, the public had no right to the information," he said. "The only [agencies] who could access it were criminal justice agencies."
Arizona has had sex offender registration laws on the books since the 1950s, Biebrich said. In the past, many sex offenders registered once and never updated their information, eventually leaving databases with information 20 to 30 years old.
"The information is now up-to-date, accurate, fresh," he said.
State law requires sex offenders, most of whom are required to register for life, to inform their county sheriff of name and address changes within 72 hours, excluding weekends and holidays.
The community notification system, implemented in 1996, requires law enforcement agencies to distribute fliers to the community when a sex offender moves into an area, but the definition of "community" may differ among agencies and even among cases.
"The scope of community notification is discretionary," Biebrich said. "It's up to the law enforcement agency."
In Tempe, a detective assigned to sex offender notification determines how large of an area to notify on a case-by-case basis, said Sgt. Dan Masters. The city distributes its fliers via mail.
Masters said police look for "clusters" of a large number of sex offenders living in the same area, but these clusters rarely develop in Tempe.
He said this may be because Tempe has a detective solely dedicated to sex-offender compliance.
"We know where they are and if they're not complying with the law. It won't take us a month to find out about it," Masters said. "We're not going to ... let [a cluster] get out of hand to where it's affecting the quality of life in a neighborhood."
The ASU Department of Public Safety posts fliers concerning sex offenders and distributes them to other University departments and via e-mail.
Tempe and ASU police also post the information about the addresses of sex offenders on their Web sites.
Like municipal police departments, ASU police notify the University community of sex offenders who move into an area near an ASU campus, said Cmdr. John Sutton.
A sex offender who may not live near a campus but is affiliated with the University as a student or employee "would compel a notification as well," he said.
But law enforcement agencies stress that information about the sex offenders is provided for public awareness and safety, not to be used for harassment or vigilantism.
To date, "we've had very, very little abuse of the information," Biebrich said. "There's been a handful of stories, if that."
Reach the reporter at brian.indrelunas@asu.edu.
ONLINE EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was updated March 23.
