State Auditor Says Over 1200 Sex Offenders Unaccounted For

State Auditor Nicole Galloway

Local law enforcement across Missouri don’t know the whereabouts of more than 12-hundred registered sex offenders, including almost 800 that would be classified as the most dangerous. That’s according to a report released Monday by State Auditor Nicole Galloway’s Office. The report puts much of that blame on the inadequate enforcement of registration requirements at the local level. The report also found that less than 10-percent of those identified as non-compliant did not have active warrants for their arrests preventing law enforcement from doing its job. The audit also puts the highway patrol under scrutiny for failing to improve the different procedures for maintaining the database of offenders, and for the need to establish agreements with other states to locate absconders. Only 2 of 129 offenders, or 1.6 percent, are non-compliant in Camden County. In Morgan County, only 2 of 126 offenders, or again 1.6 percent, are non-compliant while Miller County figures indicate that 5 of 103 sexual offenders are non-compliant…or 4.9 percent. Jurisdictions with the most non-compliant sexual offenders include Stoddard and Butler counties in southeast Missouri with 25.2 percent and 20 percent respectively while Jackson County, in the Kansas City area, came in at 20.7 percent and St. Louis City at 19.3 percent. All totaled, statewide, there are 15,622 identified sexual offenders with 1,203 non-compliant, or 7.7 percent.