OFFICIALS TOUT ONLINE DRUG ARREST DATABASE LISTING OFFENDERS

Landlords and employers trying to keep their properties and businesses drug
free can now turn to a new link on the city of Greenville's Web site for help.

Officials are touting a new database accessible from that site that groups
city residents arrested on major drug charges. The Drug Arrest Registry -
the brainchild of police and city administrators - went online last month.

Now browsers can see the names of 785 men and women charged - not convicted
of any crime - since 1998. Planners hope to attract landlords, hotel and
motel owners to the site, as well as employers interested in background
information on job applicants.

"Everybody deserves a place to live, but most landlords don't want to rent
to undesirables," Maj. Kevin Smeltzer, a project planner from the
Greenville Police Department, said. "There's been certain situations where
landlords have said, 'If I had known about their record, I wouldn't have
rented to them.'

"If they're going to rent to somebody, they can at least look at the registry."

Charges that earn a spot on the list are drug sale and distribution, and
possession of "large amounts" of drugs, Smeltzer said.

"We're not talking about someone caught with a marijuana joint," he said.

The city's computer technicians developed software to operate the site.
When a police department employee types arrests in to the city database,
the software siphons off the applicable drug charges to supply the Web
site, Rex Wilder, director of the city's technical wing, said.

"We hope it's going to be low maintenance," Wilder said. "We want it to be
an innovative way to help (police) do their job better. And it will help
the public see what's really going on" on area streets.

A lengthy disclaimer advises visitors to the link that the site is intended
only as a tool and that browsers should verify any arrest listed with the
city's criminal records office in the police department lobby.

"They are essentially mirror images of the public arrest records we keep at
the police department," police attorney Blair Carr said. "We're just
putting them in a user-friendly format. This is not our representation that
they have committed a crime."

While landlords and employers may be the first to benefit from the site,
planners said local law enforcement should see trickle-down benefits.

"We're trying to make it as difficult for criminals as possible to
operate," Smeltzer said.

His colleague, Carr, agreed.

"Drugs are a location crime," Carr said. "One does not so much buy from a
dealer as from a location. If people know that you can buy heroin at 123
Maple St., the landlord that owns 123 Maple St. should also know.

"If they know and don't act, they will get a 'nastygram' from me if we
ultimately bust the dealer."

Planners have not yet determined how long a name will remain on the list.
If the case is dismissed or a defendant acquitted, that will probably
trigger removal, Smeltzer said.

Those critical of their name ending up on such a list may not have much
legal room for complaint, one local public policy expert said.

The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a case brought in 1976 by a Kentucky man
claiming police distribution of a list of shoplifters to stores violated
his right since he was later exonerated, Tinsley Yarborough, a political
science professor at East Carolina University, said.

In that case, the court decided "you have to show more injury than just"
your name or picture, Yarborough said. "Based on that ruling, (the city)
would seem to be within their rights."

City administrators are advertising their new database at meetings of area
hotel and motel owners. Carr said reaction has been positive from
landowners interested in being "good stewards of their property."