Georgia’s policies concerning sex offenders aren’t only a strain on those who are monitored — they’re also causing difficulties for those with the responsibility of monitoring.

The Georgia Sexually Violent Offender Registry was enacted by the 1996 Georgia General Assembly, and legislators passed tough laws in 2006 that restricted where these offenders can live, work and even congregate.

Shortly thereafter civil rights groups began challenging the most restrictive portions of the law.

They claimed certain provisions, such as one that bans offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of just about anywhere children gather, rendered vast portions of Georgia off-limits to offenders.

They also have targeted other portions of the law, with several challenges that have been resolved or are pending in state and federal court.

Some provisions have been found unconstitutional while others have been upheld, and this back-and-forth between the legislative and judicial branches has left those who enforce the law in the lurch at times.

“It’s a political football, nobody wants to be seen as being weak on sex offenders,” said Tom Caldwell, chief deputy with the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office. “Then the sheriffs get caught up in the mix.”

Sheriff’s departments across the state are the ground troops in monitoring the whereabouts of sex offenders on parole.

While many feel monitoring is necessary for the sexually violent or dangerous, they still would like legislators to take a viable approach to the offender registry.

The Georgia Sheriff’s Association is set to meet with legislators for a three-day session on Jan. 25 and one of the likely topics is the registry.

Caldwell said it’s a possibility they’ll talk to legislators about taking measures to fine-tune the registry to provide a more focused monitoring of predatory sex offenders.

“(The registry) started out as sex offenders in general, and I think they’re generally trying to craft it down to the people we really need to be looking at,” Caldwell said.

Locally the Sheriff’s Office collaborates with the probation and parole offices to keep track of area sex offenders. In this way the three agencies spread the burden, and the cost, to keep track of Floyd County’s 100-plus registered offenders.

“We all three kind of work it together,” Caldwell said. “As long as we know what they’re doing, where they’re living, where they’re working and what kind of potential threat they might be — that’s what we’re working to do.”

Another issue with the law is that many sheriffs found themselves with additional responsibilities but no additional people or funding to handle the additional work, said J. Terry Norris, executive director of the Georgia Sheriff’s Association.

“When the Legislature passed the laws, the sheriff’s offices across the state didn’t get additional funding for the additional task of keeping up with the sex offender registry,” Norris said.

However he said the majority of the GSA’s issues deal with creating a workable registry that takes local concerns into consideration.

A regular topic of conversation between the sheriffs and legislators has to do with the classification of sex offenders.

Right now both sex offenders and “sexually violent predators” are monitored in much the same way, Norris said.

According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation registry Web site, Floyd County has 172 registered sex offenders and two with the predator designation.

There are 17,514 registered sex offenders statewide.

“I don’t know if we have the answers on how to classify them,” Norris said. “There’s so many, so they can’t make any headway — we really don’t have any easy answers.”

But that being said, local authorities have been going above and beyond to make determinations as to who is dangerous and needs more monitoring within their own communities, Norris said.

Other things the GSA would like to see enacted are having homeless sex offenders report to sheriffs weekly and creating multi-county registration for those who work or go to school in counties other than the one they live and are registered in.

One big one for the GSA is to eliminate the annual $250 dollar registration fee for sex offenders, Norris said.

“They don’t have the money. They can’t pay it,” Norris said. “Most of these guys don’t have it anyway, they really don’t.”