Adam Walsh FY17 Grant

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (AWA) (42 U.S.C. § 16909, et seq.; Pub. L. 113-235, 128 Stat. 2130, 2193) authorizes the Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking (SMART) to administer sex offender management grants. These grants assist states, the District of Columbia, U.S. principal territories and tribal jurisdictions in developing and/or enhancing sex offender registration and notification programs that support substantial implementation of Title I of the AWA, known as the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). SORNA was enacted to protect the public from convicted sex offenders and offenders against children by establishing a comprehensive national system for the registration of those offenders.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol, in conjunction with local Sheriff’s Offices, have identified some critical needs that will help the local agencies who are required to register sex offenders continue to do so with timeliness, accuracy, and completeness. The primary problem Missouri Sheriff’s Departments who are responsible for registering sex offenders are currently facing is a lack of funding at the local level to purchase and maintain technological tools to help ensure timeliness, accuracy and completeness of sex offender registration. The primary affected technological tools are 1) costs of maintaining the livescan device the agency uses to register sex offenders, and 2) acquiring new pcs to use for sex offender registration and accessing the state sex offender system.

The grantee will use the SMART FY2017 AWA grant funds to assist all 94 Missouri Sheriff’s Departments with annual costs associated with maintenance/subscription of livescan devices used for sex offender registration purposes. Assisting these agencies with annual maintenance/subscription costs of maintaining their livescan that are used for sex offender registration purposes, will help these agencies with the costs associated of “rolling into” the new subscription plan, which will help reduce costs over the long term, making livescan technology more affordable and sustainable into the future. Missouri State Highway Patrol will also use the FY2017 AWA grant funds to procure equipment such as pc's, monitors, keyboards, mouse, monitor stands. Assisting Missouri Sheriff’s Departments with replacing old/outdated computers with new computers to use for sex offender registration purposes, relieves some of the burden experienced by local agencies, and provide an important benefit to the sex offender registration process in Missouri.
ca/ncf