In 2006, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was established on a national level to create a uniform sex offender registry across the country. However, Texas and Arizona, Arkansas, California, and Nevada have declined to participate in the program and instead use their existing sex offender registries.
While the intentions behind the Adam Walsh Act are good, Texas officials say that it would be incredibly costly to change the system they have in place now in order to fit the conditions of the national registry. Texas boasts that the system that they use right now is very effective the way it is, and sees no point in changing it. Texas will lose about 1.4 million dollars in grant money from the federal government as a result of not complying with the national registry. However, officials suggest it would cost almost 40 million dollars to change the current system in Texas.
Texas has about 70,000 registered sex offenders. Officials in Texas also say switching over to the national registry would add even more people to the registry. Texas lawmakers are already looking for a solution as to how only place the offenders who are most violent or most likely to reoffend on the registry.
Many states who have agreed to adhere to the Adam Walsh act have found it increasingly difficult to implement the necessary changes to their existing sex offender registry due to financial constraints.