Prosecutor proposes change to sex-offender registry

BLOOMFIELD, Mo. -- It was 26 years ago that 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was abducted. And although Wetterling's body was never found, his disappearance led to the first federal law on registering sex offenders.

Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney Russ Oliver said officials at the state and county levels do a good job of maintaining the registry, but he would like to see something added to it.

"I would like for there to be a tier system," Oliver said. "Having a tier system in place would help everyone."

That would mean establishing categories for different types of offenders.

"Basically, what you would have is, say, Tier One would be for the worst kind of sex offenders. They would be the violent, aggressive predators on the registry," Oliver said.

"Tier Two would be less severe cases than Tier One but would maintain the names of offenders that have preyed on their victims in a less severe way.

"Tier Three would be for your 'Romeo and Juliet' kind of cases," Oliver said. "Romeo and Juliet" are situations in which a minor female has a boyfriend who may be 18 or just a few years older, and charges are filed as a result of that.

"There are a lot of stories like that out there," Oliver said. "And I know there are some people in those kinds of situations that are desperate to get off the registry. There are ways for them to do that, but I'm not for removing an entire section of people from the registry altogether."

A tier system would allow for people checking the registry to find out what type of offender someone might be.

"Basically, if you know your neighbor is on the registry, but you don't know what he was convicted of, if you go to the registry and see what tier he belongs to, that will let you know the type of individual you're dealing with," Oliver said.