Sex offenders on campuses to be tracked

Registered sex offenders on college campuses around the country may have to add their name to another list this fall. Under the federal Campus Sex Crimes Prevention Act passed in 2000, states will be required to track the locations of sex offenders on college and university campuses across the country. While the law went into effect on Oct. 28, 2002, schools have until Sept. 30, 2003 to comply before they lose federal funding. There are still many states, including Pennsylvania, that have yet to bring their own laws into compliance and therefore stand to lose funding. Right now, Penn does not provide the names of sex offenders on campus to the state. The CSCPA mandates that all states require colleges and universities to make information about school-affiliated sexual offenders available to the campus police department. The list must then be made available to any member of the community. According to Penn's General Counsel Wendy White, the reason many states have yet to comply with this federal statute is because the federal government has not produced instructions for compliance in the Federal Register as it often does. These are specific instructions as to what being in compliance with any federal law means for a state. At this point, the federal government has not guided states at all, so many are unsure of how to proceed, White explained. California is one of a handful of states that has already passed laws to be in compliance with the CSCPA. According to Stanford University Office of General Counsel attorney Jennifer Westerlind, states are not required to wait for federal guidance to create laws and often pass laws that go further than the federal statute mandates. Pennsylvania does maintain a list of all the registered sex offenders in the state. Under a federal law known as Megan's Law, every state must maintain a public list of all sex offenders that is updated frequently. However, this list does not include the specific place of employment for the registered offender. The goal of the CSCPA is to make a list of sex offenders affiliated with any college or university accessible to that community. Although specific names of sex offenders affiliated with the school are not currently available to campus residents, Penn does keep careful statistics on the number of reported cases. "We don't provide information [about specific people] to the state," White said. "But under campus crime reporting, you can find out statistics on [the] specific number of events and occurrences of sex crimes on campus." For now, the University is not affected by the new federal law but hangs in limbo waiting for the state to act.