Kansas Attorney General's Office Update: Registered Sex Offenders on Myspace.com

Aug. 17, 2007 -- In late May 2007, Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison subpoenaed information about registered sex offenders in Kansas who were operating on Myspace.com. He issued a civil subpoena and received 331 records of offenders with pages on Myspace.

Immediately, an investigation began in conjunction with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI).

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In early July, Myspace revealed that 29,000 registered sex offenders in the United States were participants on their site. This was contrary to their previous estimate of 7,000. In light of this disturbing information, Morrison again subpoenaed records of registered sex offenders in Kansas with Myspace pages.

This week, the Attorney General's Office received an additional 454 records. It is important to note that some of these records may be duplicates from the previous list of offenders who had their page deleted and created a new page.

The records are being reviewed by the KBI, the Kansas Department of Corrections and the Attorney General's Office.

Morrison has also been working with the Department of Corrections to come up with new guidelines for parolees regarding the use of social networking Web sites and other sites frequented by children.

"Social networking sites, such as Myspace, have become a virtual playground for sex offenders," Morrison said. "It is vital that we do everything we can to keep registered offenders away from children in our communities and on the Internet."

More information will be released after guidelines are approved and the investigation is complete.

Source: Kansas Attorney General