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McLean Co. uses map program to test sex offenders’ compliance

By Greg Cima
gcima@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON — A tape measure used to be sheriff’s deputies’ only tool to tell if a sex offender was living the required distance from schools, day-care centers, churches and parks, McLean County Sheriff Mike Emery said.

Now deputies can see almost instantly whether offenders are complying with that residency law, thanks to a new use for computerized mapping technology.

Emery announced on Friday that his office has started processing sex offenders’ addresses through a mapping program run by McLean County’s geographic information system. The GIS is maintained through the county’s regional planning commission.

“Certainly, the sexual predators have a lot of tools available to them, and technology has given them more,” McLean County State’s Attorney Bill Yoder said, later adding, “Technology has also given law enforcement a tool to fight back.”

In a demonstration Friday, Leah Sweeney, a specialist with the McLean County GIS, showed a map of the village of McLean with two green dots in the town’s southeast corner marking the locations of homes of sex offenders. Larger, semitransparent orange circles surrounding those homes represented the 500-foot buffer offenders have to keep between their homes and the schools, parks, day-care centers and churches marked elsewhere on the map.

The sheriff said this is the first use of the technology for his office, and it likely will be expanded to include accident and traffic citation data.

As for accuracy for locations, the sheriff said, “I’d like to think it’s within an inch.”

Yoder said authorities would still need to take physical measurements for evidence that will stand up in court.

Violation of the sex offender registration law is a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, Yoder said. Repeat offenders can be punished by up to seven years.

The McLean County GIS already had the technology, but Emery said he doesn’t know how to quantify the cost of labor performed for the project.

He said the information with locations of sex offenders has been available on department computers in the last two weeks.

Sheriff’s Lt. Carl Boyd said the county tracks 40 to 50 sex offenders in rural areas at any given time. Police in some villages, such as LeRoy and Chenoa, track sex offenders on their own.

Sweeney said the map with the locations of sex offenders is only currently available to the sheriff’s office and McLean County Information Services.

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Reader comments on this story - 4 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

What to do in Salem wrote on Aug 25, 2007 3:13 PM:

" This reminds me of the witch trials of salem. But the sex offender should be tried, convicted on the evidence---and KILLED! then he won't be tracked and persecuted, and the state saves the money for something better, like maybe getting the children or adults of the assault some counseling. The offender has killed the victim, especially children. they will never ever recover without professional help, maybe not even then. I wish my parents had believed me, and killed the one that did it to me, he even continued after my parents knew. These people have NO purpose on earth. "

jm wrote on Aug 25, 2007 9:27 AM:

" or from the grave! even better!! "

JD wrote on Aug 25, 2007 8:59 AM:

" This sex offender thing is getting way out of hand. There are currently a slew of people tagged as sex offenders because of either some over zealous lawyer or some gray area in the sex offender laws. I read an article about a young girl who ran in front of car, almost getting hit. The man got out of his car, grabbed the girls arm, and started to verbally chastise her for her carelessness. The man was convicted of a sex offense because the prosecutor made the case that grabbing her arm was a precursor to possible abduction. We need to stop the BS, shoot the real sex offenders, and quit playing with laws. "

..::mizer::.. wrote on Aug 24, 2007 10:27 PM:

" They would all be much easier to track from prison...where they belong! "

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