HARTFORD, Conn. -- The state does not know the location of nearly one out of every 10 people listed on the Connecticut sex offender registry, an I-Team investigation has revealed.

The missing offenders are labeled on the registry's Web site as being "out of compliance," and for some of them -- that's been the case for years.

I-Team Finds Missing Sex Offenders

Tamyra Brown, of Hartford, said she couldn't believe it when the I-Team told her that 8 percent, or one out of every 13 people listed on the state's Sex Offender Registry, is listed as not in compliance. To earn that classification, the offender must have failed to inform state police of their current address every 90 days as the law requires.

"That's not a good thing because if you have a lot of people running around, and they're sex offenders, you never know what they could be doing," Brown said.

Brown is not the only person the I-Team found who is alarmed that nearly 400 registered sex offenders, many of whom have been convicted of either first- or second-degree assault may be flying under the radar of law enforcement.

"You ought to fish or cut bait with that thing. Either get it working, or stop it. It doesn't make sense," said Joseph Bernadino, of Wethersfield. "People have a secure feeling that this is going on, it's not going on."

The database is maintained by Connecticut State Police, and state police Lt. Paul Vance said it is a Class D Felony if sex offenders fail to update his agency of their whereabouts. He admitted that there are limits to how much it can make Connecticut's 5,000 sex offenders comply with the law.

"I think one has to realize that these are people that have committed criminal acts, and some of the criminal acts, many of these criminal acts are heinous, but certainly some of these criminal acts are much more serious," Vance said. "Some of these individuals don't want to be found. Some of these individuals will flee law enforcement. You know, we'll certainly do everything we can to bring everyone into compliance. In a perfect world we would have everyone in compliance. At this point in time, we're doing the best we can to make sure the list is accurate, available, and is in compliance as best we can make it."

While the registry is maintained by state police, if an offender is not in compliance, local police in most cases are the ones who have to track down the violators.

West Hartford Police Chief James Strillacci said that residents can look at the registry in another light: While 8 percent of the sex offenders on the registry are not in compliance, 92 percent have kept their information current. He said that people need to remember that the registry is not going to protect everybody from "all possible evildoers."

"The sex offender registry doesn't contain a lot of bad people," he said. "There are people who were never arrested, ones that got away with it, people who were not convicted, people who plead down to a lower charge."

Bernadino said he believes that having different agencies working on the registry may be why 8 percent of the sex offenders are listed as not in compliance.

"When you have 'A' responsible for this, and 'B' to do that, who's gonna force one to the other? The local cops, it's not a big priority for them. I think it should be a coordinated, a centralized thing, not coordinated, so it gets done, otherwise each one can point the finger at the other one," Bernadino said.

Vance said that in fact, Connecticut's Sex Offender Registry has been used as a model for what many other states now have.

"Certainly it's a feather in the cap of people here in Connecticut -- we have a very good system, not perfect, but we're doing the best we can to keep it as accurate as possible," he said.

Vance said the registry will be getting some major improvements next year, thanks to $1 million of bond money the governor helped raised for it. Whether that will reduce the number of offenders listed out of compliance remains to be seen, however.