SEX OFFENDER LAW HAS LITTLE EFFECT LOCALLY

Since most sex-related crimes in Cape Girardeau County are felonies, Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle doubts a new state law requiring misdemeanor sexual offenders to register with authorities will have much impact.

Until now, only convicted felony sex offenders have been required to register their address with their sheriff's office. The new law, in force as of Aug. 28, asks those convicted of indecent exposure or unwanted sexual touching to report to the sheriff, too.

"But these misdemeanor crimes are things that just don't happen often," Swingle said.

No more than a dozen reports of indecent exposure in Cape Girardeau County are received each year, Swingle said. And no one in recent memory has been charged for "deviate sexual intercourse with another person of the same sex," or homosexuality, a class A misdemeanor.

The prosecutor's office does receive complaints of strangers approaching persons of the same gender with sexual propositions, but this is only an attempted sex crime, which falls outside of the new law, Swingle said.

Registration of sexual offenders, which began in 1979, is a relatively simple process, Capt. Ruth Ann Dickerson of the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department said. The department receives names of offenders in the county from the Missouri State Highway Patrol and probation and parole officers. If someone fails to register, the prosecutor sends a letter.

"It basically says 'We know you're there,'" Dickerson said. "But people here are very cooperative."

Fifty-five people who committed felony sex crimes are registered in Cape Girardeau County, she said, but the number of misdemeanor offenders is not yet known.

The highway patrol has informed misdemeanor offenders by mail that they are required to register with a sheriff, Lt. Tim Hull said. But few are cooperating.

The patrol is sending sheriffs lists of those who aren't complying. The lists go to the sheriff where the original conviction occurred, Hull said. If the offenders' addresses aren't valid, the patrol hopes deputies will make a reasonable effort to locate them.

"It could be a matter of stopping a crime before it happens," Hull said.

Offenders who fail to register under the new law are guilty of a class A misdemeanor, which carries a sentence of up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.