The public can now look up state prisoner information at the Department of Corrections website.

Type a prisoner's last name into the inmate locator, and you can find out where he's being held, his year of birth and the date he becomes eligible for parole. The database also shows the prisoner's ID number, when his sentence ends and the general category of his most serious crime, such as "fraud" or "sexual."

Escaped convicts are listed in red, with their escape dates. Those awaiting trial or recently sentenced may have "not calculated" as their parole date. Some offenders with no parole or maximum dates and crime information are being held on behalf of other states.

"Victims can check on an offender to see when they're up for parole, or where they are," corrections spokesman Jeff Lyons said Tuesday. He said the department is releasing the information under the state Right-to-Know Law.

The new system has some quirks. Murderers sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole - including Pamela Smart, who conspired with her 16-year-old lover and his friends to kill her husband, Gregory Smart, in 1990 - have their "maxed date" listed as Dec. 31, 3000.

Inmates such as her former lover, William Flynn, who have a maximum sentence of life with a possibility of parole, show a "maxed date" of Dec. 31, 2999. Flynn could be paroled in 2018.

Lyons said most other states have some form of "inmate locater" online, but the amount of information they release varies.

"Some states have everything: photograph, height and weight, sentencing court, tattoos," he said. Others list only names and location, not crimes or sentences, even though that information is public at courthouses.

Corrections is building a new database with more detailed information, as part of the new computer network linking police, court, prison and parole data. Lyons said he hopes when it is finished, the department will be able to upgrade the website.

"We'd like to get to the point where we can eventually put photographs, consecutive sentence information" and specific crimes on the website, he said.