Expose in Maryland

Maryland last week launched its first sex offender registry site, at .The Public Safety and Correctional Services Department site lists names, addresses, photos and offenses of 2,282 people convicted of sex crimes in the state since October 1995, said Leonard A. Sipes Jr., director of public information.But a bill recently passed by the General Assembly would bump up the list’s size. The bill requires that the department retroactively add information dating back to 1975 about individuals who have committed certain categories of crimes, Sipes said. The governor has not yet signed the bill, he said, but the registry from which the data would be drawn contains 1.6 million records.The records, stored on a mainframe in IBM DB2, are secured by firewalls, Sipes said. The registry also links to federal databases such as the FBI’s National Crime Information Center.The site uses commercially available products, including Microsoft Access and Excel, and Adobe GoLive, said David Spikes, Web content manager for the division.