Legislation approved by the state Assembly would require sex offenders to also register their online personas.
Current law requires convicted sex offenders to register their current address with the state. The Department of Correction can also require them to provide a picture or their fingerprints.
That helps to keep track of where they’re going in the real world, but state Representative Andy Jorgensen (D-Fort Atkinson) is worried some of them are going online to find new victims. Jorgensen points to a report from the “Crimes Against Children Center,” which found teens are sexually victimized online to some extent at a rate of 77-percent.
The Fort Atkinson Democrat is the sponsor of a bill passed in the Assembly Thursday, which requires sex offenders to also tell DOC about e-mail or online accounts they use, along with any websites they maintain.
Jorgensen says the bill is written in a way that will help to tackle any new technology in the future that sex offenders could use to seek out potential victims.
The bill now heads to the state Senate.
AUDIO: Andrew Beckett reports (MP3 1:09)
