FY2017 Guam Sex Offender Registry Enhancement Project

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 Judiciary of Guam is requesting FY2017 AWA grant funds to enhance Guam’s SORNA infrastructure by focusing on implementing guidelines for sex offender treatment, building the capacity of their SORNA team, digitizing all registrant records, expanding database server memory and working with local partners to meet local and federal registry requirements.

Guam’s project objectives include educating stakeholders with a role in sex offender management of their responsibilities toward ensuring SORNA compliance as well as working with the Department of Corrections and the Guam Behavioral Health and Wellness Center to establish a formal, structured range of sex offender treatment services that can be tailored to meet the differing needs posed by the correctional versus mental health populations.

The grantee remains committed to increasing the timeliness and accuracy of Guam’s SOR information. To effectively address the growing number of registrants, they are requesting the resources necessary to manage the case load and registry’s technological infrastructure. Their proposal includes the hiring of additional case managers to assist with monitoring and verifying registrant information. They will also continue efforts to digitize all registry documents with a goal of converting 100 documents per month for the life of the project. To support the records conversion, they plan to expand the storage capacity of the database servers. The aforementioned projects will all use FY2017 AWA grant funds.
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