There are currently more than 39,000 sex offenders in Florida and nearly 11,000 in Georgia.

But how did the registration system that we know today, come to be?

FSU Law professor Wayne Logan's latest book breaks down for the first time ever, the historical context of the sex offender registration system,from past to present.

Sex offender registration as we know it, has been around for nearly two decades, but as Florida State Law professor Wayne Logan's new book looks into, registration programs have been around for more than seventy years.

Logan says it all started back in the 1930's, when city of Los Angeles created a registration system to keep organized crime and gangsters out of the area.

"It's a technology that's been here a long time and so I think that it's very healthy, when we're looking at public policy, look at it holistically, and in an historical context because perhaps it would provide us with a fuller understanding of what this means in an evolutionary sense," says FSU Law professor and Author, Wayne Logan.

But now, in the 21st century, incidents as recent as Jacycee Dugard, proves the system isn't perfect.

Phillip Garrido, the alleged kidnapper of Dugard, was a registered sex offender in 1991, the same year she went missing.

So although some won't argue that registration systems have deterred many offenders and predators from continuing their behavior, many still believe there's room for improvement.

"I expect that because of the very nature of the crime that gets you named as a sexual predator, that's one of those things that is wishful thinking to think that that's never going to occur again," says Tallahassee Police Department Sergeant James Fairfield , of the Career Criminal Unit.

California was actually the first state to enact a criminal registration system back in the 1940's, but it wasn't until 1994 when all fifty states were required to enact registration laws or 10% of the state's funding for criminal justice programs would be denied.

If you'd like to sign up for an email notification, alerting you when a sex offender or predator moves into your neighborhood, go to:
http://www.floridaoffenderalert.com/

FDLE's main site:
http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/homepage.do

Professor Logan's book title is "Knowledge as Power: Criminial Registration and Community Notification Laws in America."