The #MeToo-inspired reckoning occurring everywhere from Hollywood to Wall Street has ushered in a new age of accountability in the workplace. However, it has also increased the pressure on Human Resources departments to not only manage these accusations appropriately but also find ways to prevent them from happening at all.

A 51-year-old Illinois man has been sentenced to prison for failing to register as a sex offender. Per a report from the Belleville News-Democrat, Dennis Cotton served as a youth sports umpire and referee for Smithton School District for about a year. A police investigation uncovered a sexual offense in Cotton’s past. The offense took place in Arizona in 2003 and required him to register as a sex offender—a step he never took.

What is a sex offender?A sex offender (also sexual offender, sex abuser, or sexual abuser) is a person who committed a sex crime, although what constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and by legal jurisdiction. In most jurisdictions, offenses include child sexual abuse, downloading child pornography, rape, and statutory rape. In much of the United States, public urination, mooning, streaking, and the failure to prevent one's own teenage children from engaging in otherwise consensual sexual activity also result being designated as a sex offender, requiring registration as such in publicly available, online lists. The term sexual predator is often used to describe severe or repeat sex offenders.In the United States, United Kingdom, and other countries a convicted sex offender is often required to register with the respective jurisdiction's sex offender registry. These registry databases are frequently accessible to the public through the internet. Sexual offenders are also sometimes classified into levels. The highest level offenders generally must register as a sex offender for their entire lives, whereas low level offenders may only need to register for a limited time. As a label of identity it is used in criminal psychology.What is a sex offender registry?Sex offender registration is a system in the United States of America and certain other developed countries designed to allow government authorities to keep track of the residence and activities of sex offenders, including those who have completed their criminal sentences. In some jurisdictions (especially in the United States), information in the registry is made available to the general public via a website or other means. In many jurisdictions registered sex offenders are subject to additional restrictions, including housing. Those on parole or probation may be subject to restrictions that don't apply to other parolees or probationers. Sometimes these include (or have been proposed to include) restrictions on being in the presence of minors, living in proximity to a school or day care center, owning toys or other items of interest to minors, or using the Internet.Do you have sex offender photos?Yes, backgroundchecks.com has more than 1,000,000 photos in our offender records.What happens to a sex offenders record when they are no longer required to register with the state sex offender registry?The backgroundchecks.com database contains historical records which may provide results even though a sex offender is no longer required to register with the state.Are sex offenders required to register in multiple jurisdictions?sex offenders are subject to the registration laws of the jurisdictions where they work, live, attend school, or were convicted. Each jurisdiction’s registration requirements might be different. Some jurisdictions require a sex offender’s registration information to remain on their public registry website even after they have relocated to another jurisdiction.Do traditional repositories managed by the state include tribal sex offender registries? No, that is one of the gaps in their coverage that is not well known. Because of that gap, backgroundchecks.com data acquisition department actively seeks to acquire sex offender databases for each tribal area and our database contains dozens of tribal offender sources.