News and Information

Plan would flag sex offenders in schools
Home News Tribune, 08/8/05, By JERRY BARCA

A program used to spot sex offenders walking into schools in Texas, Florida and Arizona will be introduced to New Jersey lawmakers by Sen. Joseph F. Vitale, D-Middlesex.

The program requires visitors to hand over their driver's licenses before entering a school. The license would then be inserted into an optical scanner. In about 10 seconds, the visitor would receive an identification sticker with the image from the license, the visitor's name, the date and time. During that time, the visitor's name and date of birth would be checked against sex-offender databases spanning 42 states.

"I like it," said Vitale. "In schools, in day care, wherever children congregate."

Vitale researched V.Soft after this newspaper contacted him with information on the program, which is made by Houston-based Raptor Technologies.

Vitale said he will introduce the program as part of measures he wants to see implemented to

strengthen Megan's Law, the legislation which created a state sex-offender registry.

Vitale has been in intense talks with the Attorney General's Office about Megan's Law since last month's arrest of two registered sex offenders for attempting to lure children in Avenel.

Vitale said he would like to see the program put in schools throughout the state. If that were to happen, Vitale said, the state should provide partial funding for the program.

Besides Texas, Florida and Arizona, V.Soft is also in use in Illinois, Maryland, Idaho and South Dakota. It will be introduced in California later this month, said Rick Roman, Midwest area manager for Raptor Technologies.

V.Soft has logged 2.1 million school visitors in the more than 900 schools it serves, according to the company's Web site.

The program costs $1,500 to install in each school plus $36 for an Internet-access fee, Roman said.

The information taken from each visitor's driver's license is protected on a computer server maintained by Raptor Technologies and kept for two years, Roman said.

Roman said the company does not raise any sex-offender privacy issues because V.Soft uses registries that are already public.

The Spring Independent School District, 17 miles north of the Houston city limits, was V.Soft's first user three years ago.

"We loved it from the moment we saw it," said Police Chief Alan Bragg.

Each month, the program spots between two and three sex offenders visiting some of the district's 27 schools, Bragg said.

The only sex offenders allowed to remain on campus are parents. In that case, faculty members and the police are notified a sex offender is visiting, Bragg said.

"It's peace of mind to know that there is some type of check that says "this person's probably OK to be on campus,' " Bragg said.

V.Soft helped change regulations set by the school district in Sarasota County, Fla.

During V.Soft's three-month test run in the district earlier this year, the program found a construction worker who was a registered sex offender, said district spokeswoman Sheila Weiss.

Now, companies doing work with the district must perform background checks on their employees, Weiss said.

Woodbridge Board of Education President Pat Hardiman reviewed information on V.Soft and called the program "outstanding."

She said the Woodbridge schools are already safe, but she plans to put V.Soft on the agenda of a Board of Education committee meeting.

"The prime goal is the security of our children," Hardiman said.