2 Kansas universities, including KU, give campus sex-offender lists online

Wichita — While two universities in Kansas provide online lists of registered sex offenders enrolled or employed on campus, most require that the basic information be provided directly by campus police.

Of the state’s six state universities, only Kansas State and Kansas University make the information readily accessible online, according to their websites. Only Kansas State includes the mugshots with the list.

Kansas State appears to offer the fastest access to the offender lists.

“This is public information. Let’s just put it out there … Let’s make it accessible,” said Kansas State’s police chief, Ronnie Grice. He said it helps students, faculty and everyone on campus be more aware.

At Wichita State, Emporia State, Fort Hays State and Pittsburg State universities, the schools’ websites direct people to the campus police stations to get the list. To see a mugshot of the offender, a person would have to go to the state’s online public offender registry kept by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

Sara Morris, Wichita State’s police chief, said she hasn’t heard any complaints about how the university handles the list. She said Wichita State is following the law in how it makes the list available and posting offenders’ photos would be unfairly “singling them out” on the relatively small campus.

Although the list isn’t online, if someone called and asked for information on the list, her staff would provide it, she said.