STATES CREATE MORE REGISTRIES TO TRACK, DETER CRIMINALS

MADISON, Wis. - Police found 29-year-old Leah Gustafson in a pool of
blood in her apartment last year. Next to her was her collector
sword. She'd been stabbed through the heart.

A blood trail led police in Superior, Wis., to an apartment across
the street, where her killer, Jason Borelli, had just gotten out of
the shower. Borelli got life in prison.

"This is something nobody else should go through," said 32-year-old
Kelly Ziebell of Superior, Gustafson's friend since high school. "It
feels like an empty hole without her."

Motivated by the murder, Ziebell and others who knew Gustafson have
spent the past year pushing lawmakers in Wisconsin and Minnesota to
join a growing a number of states that have created a variety of
databases to let the public know the whereabouts of criminals.

Modeled after the ubiquitous sex offender registries, the new online
databases tell users whether the person mowing the lawn next door
ever cooked methamphetamine, kidnapped a child or killed somebody.

Supporters say people deserve to know whether they might be in danger.

"That would make people more cautious about who their neighbors are,"
Ziebell said.

Critics counter the expanded registries are as flawed as those
devoted to sex offenders. They make politicians look tough on crime,
but trample privacy rights, set up registrants for harassment and do
little good.

"It's another example of people, quote, trying to get tough on crime
when they should get smart on crime," said Michael Iacopino, a member
of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers' board of
directors. "Legislatures didn't have the spine to basically say,
whoa, what's the outcome of these community notification provisions?"

Every state has a sex offender registry. With them have come lawmaker
proclamations that they are cracking down on the worst of the worst -
as well as complaints of harassment and stories of offenders unable
to find a neighborhood that will accept them.

More states are taking the registries further, tracking a wider swath
of convicts.

Montana, Florida, Kansas and Oklahoma track violent offenders.

In 2005, Tennessee created a registry for convicted methamphetamine
manufacturers. Last year, Minnesota and Illinois followed with their
own meth registries.

And in August, Ohio allowed judges to decide whether to place someone
found liable for assault or battery in a child sexual abuse case on a registry.

The registries generally include names, photographs, addresses and convictions.

Tennessee's meth manufacturer registry lists about 550 people. It got
500,000 hits in its first six months, said Jennifer Johnson of the
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Tennessee state Rep. Charles Curtiss, D-Sparta, said landlords
deserve to know whether they're renting to someone who could revert
to old ways and build a lab that drives down property values or
exposes people to hazardous chemicals.

"If they make meth inside of a dwelling, it's a tremendous expense to
clean it up," Curtiss said. "The public's rights outweigh an
individual's rights."

Wisconsin state Rep. Scott Suder, R-Abbotsford, is drafting
legislation to set up a violent offender registry at the urging of
Gustafson's friends. Its fate is unclear - Republicans control the
Assembly, but the bill could run into trouble in the Democrat-led
Senate or with Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. The state's sex offender
registry alone costs about $1.9 million annually.

Still, Suder wants a database that would include murderers,
kidnappers, arsonists and terrorists.

"If you've committed a serious, violent offense of this nature, I
think, frankly, you deserve to be on a registry and that's the price
you pay," Suder said. "It's simply saying the community has a right
to know what they did."

Kyle Smith is deputy director of the Kansas Bureau of Investigation,
which administers that state's sex offender and violent offender
registries. He said the registries deter criminals from re-offending.

"Does it actually do some good? I suspect it does," Smith said.

But critics argue police already have systems to check criminal
backgrounds. What's more, they say, most violent offenders don't get
out of prison for decades and chances are slim they'll reoffend.

Research on sex offender registries' impact on repeat offenses is
limited, since they must be tracked over years, said Charles Onley, a
researcher at the Center for Sex Offender Management in Silver Spring, Md.

The number of rapes in three of 10 states with registries dropped
from 1990 to 2000, according to a draft study by criminologists at
the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, an independent research firm
and the University at Albany State University of New York. But the
study concluded registration and notification had no influence on the
number of rapes committed in the states as a whole. The study has yet
to be published.

Wisconsin's Suder acknowledged a violent offender registry may not
have saved Gustafson. Her killer's lengthy rap sheet included several
disorderly conduct charges, but it's unlikely they would have landed
him on a violent offender registry.

"It certainly may not have solved or prevented what happened to Leah
Gustafson," Suder said. "But I think the more community notification
and awareness the better, particularly when it comes to these
serious, violent offenses."

Summary

Tracking Offenders: Lawmakers in Wisconsin are looking at starting a
database of violent offenders that would include murderers,
kidnappers, arsonists and terrorists. Other states are setting up
similar registries, tracking a wider swath of convicts.

What You See: The registry would be similar to sex offender databases
found in every state and put names, photographs, addresses and
convictions online.

Pros And Cons: Supporters say people deserve to know if they have
potentially violent neighbors. Critics say such registries make
politicians look tough on crime, but trample privacy rights and do little good.