Up until these last few days, you might not have heard of Jacob Wetterling. But his disappearance in October 1989 in a Minnesota town changed laws in our country.
Jacob's family started a foundation to protect children from sexual exploitation and abduction. In 1991, the foundation pushed and got Minnesota's first state Sex Offender Registration Act on the books. At this point, few states had a law.
In 1994, the "Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Act" required states to implement a sex-offender registration program.
By 1996 all states were required to conduct community notification and create an internet site...
sites containing state sex-offender information.