Is Mike McGrath protecting kids from sex predators?
The Hardliner just recently learned of this issue, but we cannot take credit for bringing it to light. Way back in January 2007, Republican Attorney General candidate Tim Fox had a press release on this very topic, and we must give full credit to him for bringing this issue to light. Interestingly, the Montana media has yet to look into this story.
It's pretty simple really, Attorney General McGrath is charged with maintaining an online Sexual or Violent Offender Registry. According to the it's web site, the Registry must include a photograph of all sex offenders. The law mandating the Registry is pretty clear about this as well. The problem is, McGrath's Department of Justice is not providing photographs for an alarming number of sex predators even though the photos are available.
With such a large mandate, a few missing photos would be excusable. The Registry's web page even provides an explanation for why photos might not be displayed. On records without a photograph, a box is displayed with the text: "The Registration Unit has not yet received a photograph for this offender."
But are they even trying? It turns out that many of the "missing" photos are already available on the Dept. of Corrections ConWeb database. Let us illustrate:
Go to the Sex Offender Registry's web site and do a zip code search for 59101. That will give you an alpha-ordered list of all the violent and sex offenders in that zip code. (For the purposes of this experiment, ignore the violent offender records; only certain types of violent offenders are required to have a photograph) Now let's cross-reference those sexual offenders without photographs against ConWeb.
Here's an example of a sex offender (crime: sexual intercourse without consent) without a picture in the Sex Offender Registry, but with one on ConWeb.
Here's a second example (crime: sexual intercourse without consent and sexual abuse of children), without a picture in the Sex Offender Registry, but with one on ConWeb.
Third example (crime: sexual intercourse without consent): Sex Offender Registry, and ConWeb.
That's three examples from the 59101 zip code, and we haven't even gotten past names starting with the letter A! According to Tim Fox's press release, the "failure rate" is estimated to be around 60%.
Granted, the Registry does have photographs for some sex offenders, and Con Web does not have photographs for every record in its database either. However, there fact that these photos are available on one state site and they're not on the state site where they are required by law to be is unacceptable. McGrath is required to post these photos, and he's completely falling down on the job.
It's obvious that providing information about sex predators is not a priority for Mike McGrath. This should be a fairly easy fix--you could even copy and past these photos on an individual basis! It's also obvious that after 16 years of Democrat administration of the Dept. of Justice, we desperately need a change in leadership. Kudos to Tim Fox for exposing this problem; and shame on the Montana media for sitting on this bombshell for over two months.
Carter
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Reader Comments (10)
That's a real reach. When's WR Grace's man filing anyhow? If you guys are so concerned, why are you spending your time shilling here instead of volunteering to keep all the Montanan's who're quivering behind locked doors safe from all those anonymous sex offenders? Give us all a break.
As for Tim Fox, any bets on which one of three guys are going to shellac him this fall?
Maybe they just need to hire someone competent enough to do the job and properly use the Internet. It sounds like just typical government employee laziness to me. Have you tried reaching out to them and offering your services and work?
People to maintain a website are a dime a dozen in this town, state government is full of competent people who could get the Attorney General's website up to date, if McGrath doesn't have the management skills to administer an IT staff at the AG's office what's he going to do as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, will the court information be in a shambles too? Anyone who's followed McGrath's career knows he's a do-nothing administrator, you can get people who worked for him when he was the Lewis and Clark County Attorney to tell you that. I fully anticipate when Tim Fox becomes our attorney General this gross oversite will be taken care of and we will in face know who the sexual offenders are roaming our neighborhoods. I wonder if Softspiner will be man enough to eat his words in November?
I know that at least one of the sex offenders addresses is at least 2 years out of date as displayed at their web site. Maybe he just doesn't care about accuracy.
20+ years of Democratic administration? must be counting Teflon Marc as a Democrat, or is it just that you couldn't find anyone in the GOP that is efficient, accurate and competent in math?
According to Roger Koopman, Gov. Racicot was a Democrat. So there. You got us, we made a small mistake, which has been corrected.
Now would you care to comment on the actual content of the story, or are you content with snide comments on minor details?
The fact of the matter is that the entire argument is a straw man. I know you aren't sitting behind a locked door, shotgun in hand, knees a knockin' and "buttcheeks clenched" (in the words of Verdell Jackson). The simple fact of the matter is that Mr. Fox is digging for anything to get his name in the paper.
Clearwater - The fact that McGrath has little regard for providing parents with information about sex predators is one thing, and I'm amazed that you're so flippant about it. I won't dwell on this point because I doubt anyone (except those blinded by partisanship) agrees with you.
But the other part is that McGrath is required by law to provide photographs of sex predators. The web site claims they're not available when in fact they are very available from the DOC. Are you trying to tell me you wouldn't be up in arms if a Republican officeholder was blatantly ignoring one of the mandated duties of his office?
Clearwater, you're so open minded your brains have fallen out! This isn't about Tim Fox and his campaign, it's about blatent incompetance at the Attorney General's office and Mr. McGrath's inability to oversee a staff of IT folks who could have this situation rectified in a matter of hours if there were doing their jobs. If Tim Fox is elected AG, there is no doubt in my mind that it won't take him 24 hours after being sworn in that he'll get it fixed, in the mean time, the streets aren't safe with these sex offenders on the lose and no way for innocent people or children to identify them.
Nice post!, bro