(Columbia) July 25, 2005 - South Carolina is not part of the National Sex Offender Registry , and WIS' viewers are wondering why.

Celeste Proffitt with the State Law Enforcement Division says a new service on the South Carolina registry just went into effect. You can check any college or university in the state to see if a sex offender is a student or working there. On searching the site, WIS found 14.

Proffitt says, "It's important for these parents sending their children off to college to make them aware of who's out there."

It's a service Proffitt says will soon extend to nursery and secondary schools. Also changing on the site, sex offender pictures, or lack of them.

Representative Joan Brady (R-District 78) helped pass a bill that calls for pictures to be posted of all sex offenders and for the registry to include more information about their crimes.

So with all of the positive changes in the works, why is South Carolina excluded from the 22 states already enrolled in a new national sex offender registry? Proffitt responds, "Believe me, we are working hard and fast trying to become part of it."

Proffitt says the new site that gives people information on sex offenders who reside outside our state's borders is vitally important. The delay she says is basically due to programmers working to get computers to talk to one another, "Also we have to look at the security issues of the information we're sending up there."

Most of the changes in the state sex offender registry go into effect the first of the year. That's the same time that SLED hopes to have the state site linked to the National Registry.

Improving sex offender registries is something Proffitt and Brady say they are invested in, not only because of their jobs, but also because they are both moms.

View the South Carolina Sex Offender Registry>>

Reported by Kara Gormley

Posted 7:10pm by Chantelle Janelle