Alia Beard Rau

The Republic | azcentral.com

For a decade, Arizona residents have sought safety in information on the state's online sex-offender database. They use it to decide where to live, where to let their children play and when additional vigilance is required.

But it turns out the site maintained by the Arizona Department of Public Safety doesn't include all of the information many think it does. Many child molesters and rapists aren't considered a high enough risk to be included.

The online database provides the location and criminal background of all registered tier-two and tier-three sex offenders, while leaving out tier-one offenders.

The tier rankings are based on criteria that haven't been fully updated in nearly 20 years. For example, offenders are considered less of a risk if they have a job, molested a girl instead of a boy, committed a crime against a family member instead of a stranger, aren't a drug addict or didn't use a weapon.

A northern Arizona woman whose then-husband, a physician, was convicted several years ago of child molestation is pushing to change that. Kara Helland is working with Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, to get Senate Bill 1286 passed into law.

The legislation would require the sex-offender website to include anyone convicted of rape, child molestation or other crimes of child prostitution or sexual exploitation of a child under age 12, regardless of the ranking.

Helland gave emotional testimony before two Senate committees, both of which passed the bill unanimously. It now goes to a vote of the full Senate, possibly as early as Wednesday, and then to the House.

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Helland said statistically, one in five girls and one in eight boys will report being molested at some point in their lifetime. In reality, she said, the number who are molested is likely higher. She said 90 percent of victims of child molestation know or have a relationship with their perpetrator.

She said people need to know if neighbors or others they come in regular contact with have been convicted. She said she was shocked to discover the online registry didn't provide that information.

"You go to a sex-offender registry, and you think you'll find all the sex offenders there," she said. "But we won't, simply because an offender has a job or a place to live. We only know who part of them are."

She said her goal is to give children, particularly those under age 12, a voice.

"When you go on a registry as a grandparent or a parent, this will tell you that the guy or woman living next door to you who is the nicest person you would meet, you will know if they've hurt a child in any sexual way whatsoever," she said. "You can teach your children 'stranger danger.' You can teach your children not to take candy from strangers. But if a sex offender wants to get to your child, they will. We need to know who they are."

Kathleen Mayer, a lobbyist for the Pima County Attorney's Office, said the offender criteria were developed in the 1990s.

"It was supposed to apprise our communities of who was a registered sex offender," she said. "But it didn't include child molesters that offend against young girls, or rapists. The instrument was not designed for the people who should be on the website for the purposes of community notification."

Someone convicted of molesting young girls was considered a lower risk of reoffending than other criminals. She said rapists often didn't meet the higher criteria, nor did someone convicted of viewing child pornography.

"I think we want to know about those people," she said. "They should have been included all along."

Kavanagh said he agreed to introduce the legislation when the defects in the registry were brought to his attention.

"I guess sometimes the omission is so glaring that nobody thinks to look at it," he said. "Everybody agrees this is much needed."

No one has registered opposition to the legislation. County prosecutors from around the state are actively supporting the bill.

"When we looked at it, we realized there were a number of categories not included," said Kim MacEachern with the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys' Advisory Council. "Sometimes, these things get put to use and people just assume they are working and you never go back and look at them."

State lawmakers said they were horrified to hear of the types of offenders not included on the list.

"Why has it taken all these years to do this? This is appalling," said Sen. Bob Worsley, R-Mesa. "I have five daughters and 25 grandchildren and I didn't know this."

Sen. Martin Quezada, D-Phoenix, an attorney, said it is clear the entire ranking system needs to be reviewed. "This is one fix, but there is more we could be doing," he said.

MacEachern said county prosecutors will go back this summer and take a closer look at Arizona's entire ranking system.

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