WATERBURY, Vt. -
For the past two years Vermont Public Safety Deputy Director Bruce Parizo has been working to make changes to the state's sex offender website.
"The more information people have the better off they are," said Parizo.
The new site launched this month Parizo says gives just that.
After a $150-thousand dollars federal grant the public now has more information about registered offenders, and makes it easier to find them.
In the past Parizo says police had to manually enter info, which took hours, if not days to update, but now if police make a change, it's almost instantaneously.
It's not just better for the public; offenders can update their profiles online, instead of to coming in or making a call.
"I know when I looked [Tuesday] morning I was fairly impressed, because there was a fairly high number that had actually utilized it," said Parizo.
Right now it's illegal in Vermont to put a sex offenders address online but if that changes in the future, the new software has program in place to show you detailed locations and say for example you have a smart phone and visited a park, you could use it to pull up a map to see which sex offenders live nearby.
One other new feature is email alerts.
If you sign-up, you'll get notified when a sex offender moves into your town.
And the new site also allows you to contact police if you have a concern.
"It's good to have that information coming in, in the event we had a bad address or someone did come up missing and absconded, that information is critical," said Parizo.
Fore more information, click here.
