JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – One state representative hopes to make Missouri residence halls safer for students by locking out registered sex offenders.

House Bill 1352 requires public universities, community colleges and technical schools to run a check on all incoming residential students against the national sex offenders database. Those that don’t pass the test will not be permitted to live on campus.

“Students deserve some level of comfort in the fact that a measure was taken to ensure that someone in the dorm next door wasn’t on the sex offender registry,” said Rep. Sam Page (D – St. Louis) who is sponsoring the bill.

Page said no specific event inspired the bill and that it’s a “pretty basic thing to ask for.” Similar legislation has been effective in Illinois for the past two years. California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah, Iowa, South Carolin, Michigan and Florida also have implemented legislation to combat sexual crime on campus in addition to the nationally mandated Cleary Act. (A crime statistics policy requiring reports on sexual offenses to be reported and made available to the public.)

“It just makes sense that convicted sex offenders don’t live in close quarters with young men and women,” he said.

The bill made it through the legislative process last year but ran out of time on the last day of session and Page believes it will pass easily this year.

“What we’ve seen is a lot of colleges have already started doing this, its just common sense, this is something that is so obvious to me,” he said.

Currently Missouri Southern does not check students against the sex offender registry or run any other kind of criminal background check. However, Doug Carnahan, dean of students, believes background checks may not be too far in the future.

“I don’t think there is a risk at Southern, but it doesn’t hurt to be extra cautious,” said Ken Kennedy, director of public safety. “It’s an area we are concerned about.”

In addition to forcible rape, forcible sodomy, sexual assault with an object and forcible fondling, statutory rape and furnish pornographic material to minors are among some of the “non-violent” offenses that will result in being added to the sexual offenders registry.

Concern has been raised that HB 1352 may push too far, banning individuals from student housing who committed non-violent offenses.

“There are extenuating circumstances to everything,” Carnahan said. “There probably ought to be some way to appeal if a person feels like they should be excluded. There are exceptions to every rule.”

In its current form, the bill requires all students to submit sufficient information to run a check and would ban all registered sex offenders from campus housing at Southern. As of now there are no restrictions.

“If they are going to school you can’t really judge them for trying to better themselves regardless of their past,” said Seth Mayoral, sophomore nursing major.

Some students don’t expect their routine would change were they to find out they were living in the vicinity of a sexual offender.

“I’d feel uncomfortable walking around at night, but not really any other time,” said Lacy Smith freshman theatre major. However, some students feel the possible elimination of residential students for nonviolent offenses is unfair.

“That’s just not right,” said Roger Morse, freshman secondary education major.

However, Page believes anything that qualifies for the registry is grounds for removal from a residence hall environment.

“We decide what goes on the sexual predators list and sexual activity with a dramatic age difference is predatory,” he said. ” Even the colleges that recognize this is a little extra work agree, this is common sense.”

Who lives next door?