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Study Says S.D. Among Least Open States Re Sex Offender Information

You would think as much as South Dakota likes to brag about being such a “tough on crime” state and “pro-family values” state that it would have among the best laws to obtain information on convicted sex offenders.

Well, if you thought so, you’d be wrong.

Like the rest of state government, a recent study says S.D. has among the LEAST open records on sex offenders.

See: University of Florida Research: No State Completely Open About …

Excerpt:

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Jan. 25 (AScribe Newswire) — No state is as open as it could be in informing the public about the presence of convicted sex offenders in the neighborhood, new University of Florida research finds.

       Indiana was rated the best state in providing information about sex offenders on the Internet while Hawaii, Nebraska and South Dakota were rated the least forthcoming by the Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project in UF’s College of Journalism and Communications. Florida was rated 35th.

       “Parents can look at the project’s Web site and say ‘this is a state that provides more information than anyone else’ or ‘these states don’t provide information,” said Bill Chamberlin, director of the Citizen Access Project and Joseph Brechner Eminent Scholar of Freedom of Information. “We tracked distribution of sex offender information because it was the subject of a recent Supreme Court opinion and we knew it was a topic a lot of citizens are interested in.”

       The UF project is the first to systematically rate state laws on the accessibility to information about sex offenders, Chamberlin said.

       States were ranked on a scale of one to seven, with one being “completely closed” and seven being “completely open.” Indiana rated a five, “somewhat open.” While no state received a rating of one, the three lowest - Hawaii, Nebraska and South Dakota — scored a two and were described as “mostly closed.” Florida, where there has been several highly publicized cases involving sex offenders in recent years, rated a “four,” which is “neither more open nor more closed.”

… .

Just something else to make you go “hmmm” about the Mt. Rushmore State.

Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2007 by Registered CommenterTodd Epp in | CommentsPost a Comment | References12 References

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