A state audit found the Georgia sex offender registry full of old addresses, entry errors and outdated software.
The registry contains “incomplete, inaccurate and outdated information” about the number and characteristics of offenders living or working in an area, the Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts report shows.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is responsible for maintaining the state sex offender registry. But with only two employees running more than 17,000 sex offenders in a database and a budget continually sinking, GBI officials said they believe the audit was unnecessary.
“It was a complete waste of our time and taxpayers’ money,” GBI spokesman John Bankhead said. “Everything they told us, we knew.”
The state keeps a database of registered sex offenders, but each sheriff’s office also must operate its own registry to keep up with sex offenders at the local level. That local information, in turn, is loaded into the state database.