Better Safe than Sorry?

Part of college life is making friends. But students could soon know more about their classmates than their majors -- mainly who on campus is a sex offender.

A bill passed this month by the House would mandate that colleges and universities notify students of any convicted sexual offenders on campus.

Under the Campus Protection Act, sex offenders have to notify their state officials of whether or not they were enrolled in higher education. The state would then pass that on to a campus' police or security. And then the school would publicize where the offender lived -- even if it was off campus.

"Under current law, millions of college students around the country have virtually no way to find out if their classmate, lab partner or roommate is a convicted sex offender," said Rep. Matt Salmon (D-Ariz.), who sponsored the bill. "Convicted sex offenders aren't allowed to conceal their identity when they are off campus. Clearly they shouldn't be allowed to conceal it when they are on campus."

Another federal statute known as Megan's Law, requires all convicted sex offenders to register with the state in which they live within seven and 30 days of being released from prison. The law was passed in 1996 and named for Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl who was abducted and abused by a repeat sex offender who lived in her neighborhood.

Salmon says his bill closes a loophole in the current law that allows these same offenders to go unnoticed on U.S. campuses. As it stands now, universities that receive federal money are currently not allowed to release information about their students.

But some say the plan has pitfalls. Civil liberties advocates have lobbied against plans to widely distribute sex offender registries in the past arguing that people could be misidentified or that they will spark vigilante attacks.

For their part, college lobbyists charge that the plan will be too burdensome for colleges and universities to match their records against the records of all 50 states.

"Nobody wants to see sexual predators on campus," Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, told the Chronicle of Higher Education. "But we are afraid that this approach will impose a significant and financial burden on all colleges and universities."

Others say that some sex offenders don't register in the first place since the penalty for doing so is lenient in some states.

"One of the problems is that there are very weak penalties for non-compliance of sex offenders," said Mark Klaas, founder of KlassKids, an organization aimed at stopping crimes against children. Klass' daughter Polly was abducted from her California home in October 1993 and murdered by a repeat sex offender.

In California, for example, it is a felony to fail to register. But in Maine, it is a misdemeanor. "Then there's the problem of individuals moving from state to state and not registering," he added.

The bill is not yet scheduled for Senate debate. But Salmon is optimistic it will pass.

"Parents already have enough to worry about when they send their kids off to college," he said. "They shouldn't have to worry about their child being victimized by a convicted sex offender hiding out on campus."

This article originally appeared on Chickclick's news channel, Shewire.com. Lucy Maher is ChickClick's news editor.