Those classifications accompany offenders' registration. Anyone can examine the registry by going to a police station. With the mail registration issue before the SJC, it has been difficult for the registry board to contact convicts about classification hearings, said Ann M. Dawley, the Sex Offender Registry Board's chairwoman. The board has been using tools the Legislature included in the law, such as access to the Department of Revenue and Registry of Motor Vehicles databases, to find sex offenders' addresses, she said. Although it has taken some time to get the seven-member board to the point of drafting regulations and holding classification hearings, the board's members are ready to move forward, Dawley said.
Prosecutors also express relief that the state is closer to registering offenders.
Essex County prosecutor William E. Fallon agrees, noting that a registry is not going to provide complete protection from the repeat acts of sex offenders. The Massachusetts registration requirement is different from those established by other states because it is retroactive to 1981. That means the number of sex offenders required to register could be 15,000 to 17,000, according to state statistics. Most states numbers don't come close to that. Boston attorney James M. Doyle, who represented a juvenile offender in an earlier challenge to the registry, said that the Legislature might have bitten off more than it could chew when it created the sex offender registry.