NEWS: Sex offenders complying with new law

Routinely, convicted sex offenders had to report to a police station and verify their addresses. But a new law that took effect Friday requires much more information, causing the process to balloon from three minutes to as much as two hours.

The Adam Walsh Law helps bring Michigan in line with federal standards and is part of the reforms passed by the Michigan legislature earlier this year. Now, sex offenders and classified into three tiers and the so-calledRomeo-and-Juliet cases among consenting teens has been eliminated.

The legislature took action shortly after a Target 8 investigation into the Michigan Sex Offender Registry.

Offenders who now report to verify their information will also be required to provide information on where they work, cell phone numbers, vehicle information, license plate numbers, the vehicle ID number, email address, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Failing to report is a felony.

"From an investigative standpoint, it will make things a whole lot easier to be able to start looking into things," Sgt. Steve Labrecque told 24 Hour News 8. But "today has been, (sigh) I knew it was going to be a nightmare and it's turned out to be a nightmare."

To help with the overwhelming number of people and the backlog in the station, two Michigan State Police troopers helped out.

In the city of Grand Rapids, there are an estimated 1,000 registered sex offenders. As many of them arrived, it didn't take long before "the system that we are required to put all of this information in dropped out of service."

Police were forced to ask the registering offenders to be patient and hope they would comply.

"They came in," Labrecque said. "I view it as our obligation to get what we can and we will work with it, because getting some info is better than not having them show back up."

Lengthy delays like this are not the new norm for reporting, police said, but there is one additional provision that will continue to tax police resources.

"Now that the law requires them to change everything within three days," he said, "I expect that our office is going to be much busier."