In the city of Houston, police say they have identified 131 known sex offenders and 132 people with outstanding arrest warrants, prompting officials there to begin the process of sending out patrols to identify and arrest any violators.

"We're going to be very actively pursuing these individuals," said Lieutenant Robert Manzo, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department. "I would say within the next 24 hours."

In total, state police have identified 628 Louisiana residents here who are either registered sex offenders or who are wanted by authorities.

Under US law, those convicted of sexual crimes are required to give their names and address to local police within seven days of moving to Texas or risk a felony charge. A small number of offenders have registered voluntarily, officials said.

Local police and state authorities for weeks have been demanding the information about suspected criminals and sexual predators from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

FEMA balked at first, saying it could not give out the list of evacuees who had sought federal assistance in Texas because of US privacy laws - a list state officials wanted to check against the names of known sex offenders.

The impasse led to an angry exchange between Texas Governor Rick Perry and the US Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA.

Perry wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff earlier this month that the agency's failure to provide the information "continues to jeopardize the safety" of Texas residents.

Chertoff complained that he learned about Perry's complaint "through a press release" and asked him to phone him next time. On Monday, FEMA provided the list of suspected criminals and known sex offenders who sought federal assistance in Texas.

There have been at least four alleged sex attacks carried out by Katrina evacuees in Texas, which has about 400,000 evacuees living within its state borders.

In one of the attacks, a man known as a past sex offender in Louisiana had been baby-sitting 11 children - fellow Katrina evacuees - in a Dallas-area hotel. He was charged October 5 by police in the Dallas suburb of Richardson for failing to register as a sex offender and for allegedly sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl.

While an emptied-out New Orleans has seen its crime rate plummet, Houston's violent crime went up 5.6 percent in August and September as compared to those two months in 2004, according to city officials.

With 200,000 evacuees, Houston is looking to add more than 500 new officers, in part to help patrol neighborhoods with a "high concentration of relocated citizens" the police department says.

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