State Rep. pushing for tougher sex offender identification laws

BOSTON (MyFoxBoston.com) -- Some state representatives are renewing a push for more strict sex offender registration laws after the death of Level 1 sex offender John Burbine.

Last year, Rep. Carlo Basile co-sponsored a bill to bar classifying those who commit sex offenses against children, like Burbine, from Level 1 sex offender status.

"Anybody who sexually assaults a child should be put online immediately if they are convicted of it. There should be no secrecy," he told the Boston Herald.

The state had classified Burbine, who died Friday of an apparent suicide and was awaiting trial for sexually abusing 13 children and infants, as a Level 1 sex offender despite his three 1989 convictions for indecent assault and battery on a child. The classification allowed his past to stay secret, police barred by law from telling parents of children he cared for about his record.

But he's far from the only Level 1 sex offender convicted of crimes against children, a FOX Undercover investigation found.

The state Sex Offender Registry Board, in response to a records request from FOX Undercover, now says that 1,737 Level 1s have child sex offenses on their records. That's 65 percent of all the 2,693 Level 1 offenders in the state.

Cox Media Group