"We've enacted one of the toughest laws in the nation to crack down on child sex predators, putting in place longer sentences, and improved registration and monitoring," Governor Lynch said. "Families, schools and law enforcement depend on the sex offender registry to help keep kids safe."

Last Friday, Governor John Lynch called for an immediate review of procedures for maintaining and updating the sex offender registry after news reports that a Newmarket man, convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager a decade ago, was missing from the state's list of registered sex offenders until last spring. The Department of Safety corrected the list in April to include the offender on the public registry.

In response to Gov. Lynch's direction to review the incident, the Department of Safety determined that the oversight was attributed to the age of the victim of the crime being miscalculated when it was reported to the department at the time the public list of sex offenders was created in 1999.

According to the Department of Safety, the Newmarket sex offender had pled guilty to two counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault against a juvenile in 1994. In 1999, New Hampshire first adopted its law requiring a public listing of registered sex offenders against children under 13. When this law was adopted, the Department gathered information on the age of victims from the courts and from local communities. Due to a mathematical error, the victim's age at the time of the offense was misreported to the Department of Safety as being over age 13, and the sex offender was not placed on the public list. Although all sex offenders register annually with their local police departments, the department's Sex Offender Unit did not discover the erroneous entry of the victim's age until April 2006, at which time the sex offender was added to the public list.

Governor Lynch ordered an immediate audit of the sex offender registry to verify that it is accurate and up to date. The Department of Safety will take additional steps to improve oversight and training on procedures for sex offender registration, including:

• Establishing a task force to oversee implementation of improvements to the sex offender registration process under the sexual predators act;
• Assigning a state trooper to design a specialized online training course for local police departments on sex offender registration protocols; and
• Requesting the Attorney General to provide an updated legal overview of sex offender registration laws for county attorneys, local police departments and clerks of court.