CLEVELAND -- Sexual predators are able to get much closer to your child than you ever dreamed possible.

NewsChannel5 Chief Investigator Duane Pohlman found scores of rapists and molesters placed right in your child's own school and no one has to warn you.

Pohlman: A 16-year-old boy is a registered sex offender convicted of gross sexual imposition with a 4-year-old. We can't show you his face.

Very few people know about his crime, including administrators at his school.

Mom: "I didn't know that schools weren't being notified."

Sgt. Rob Havranek, Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Sex Offense Unit: "At least the schools should be notified if these individuals committed sex offenses."

Pohlman: They don't know because no one told them. And, as you're about to see, despite a law that's supposed to protect us, juvenile sex offenders are still kept secret.

Richard Decolibus, President Cleveland Teachers Union: "They're out there and nobody knows."

Pohlman: While the system works hard keeping sex offenders well away from our schools, it turns out we're letting hundreds of them right through the front door and into our classrooms.

"That's not what we want?"

Carmen Naso, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney: "No, it isn't."

Decolibus: "I have a 13-year-old daughter. I want to know if some kid sitting next to her is a sexual predator."

Mom: "It gets you very upset as a parent. It makes me very angry."

Pohlman: In a comprehensive investigation of the juvenile court system, the NewsChannel5 investigative team asked for and received some of the most detailed information ever released by the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court.

What we found was not just disturbing.

Mom: "I'm appalled that that's happening."

Pohlman: "You're concerned?"

Naso: "Yes, very concerned."

Pohlman: It might just change the way the system handles juvenile sex cases.

State Sen. Jim Jordan: "I think it does send up a red flag."

Pohlman: Nineteen months ago, Ohio passed a law requiring juveniles convicted of selected sex crimes to register as sex offenders.

Jordan: "The intent of the legislation was identify those most dangerous individuals."

Pohlman: State Sen. Jim Jordan was a co-sponsor of the bill.

Jordan: "And make sure families and communities know that they are out there and they can take the necessary precautions to protect their kids."

Pohlman: But in more than a year and a half, the entire state has managed to register just 123 juvenile sex offenders.

Cuyahoga County, the largest in the state, has registered just four juvenile sex offenders. That's it -- four.

Decolibus: "It's very clear that after 19 months and four people are identified that the system has failed."

Pohlman: While the administrative judge in judicial court disagrees.

Judge Joseph Russo, Administrative Judge, Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court: "The system, ah ... is working."

Pohlman: Everybody agrees when it comes to that number four.

Naso: "That seems like a low number."

Jordan: "That would seem somewhat low."

Russo: "They seem low."

Havranek: "It seems like it's on the low side."

Pohlman: To understand why four is such a low number, you have to take a look at how many juveniles who could have been forced to register. About 280 juveniles who faced sex charges are within the new law.

But quickly that number starts falling. More than 100 charges were dropped, some juveniles were found not guilty, some failed to appear, some of the cases were continued indefinitely and on-and-on.

Finally, we get all the way down to 48 -- the number of juveniles who were found guilty and who now faced mandatory review.

But the court could only register four and it gets worse. Not one of them is registered as a predator or habitual offender.

So, we reach rock bottom -- zero. That's the number of schools that have been notified.

Decolibus: "If the principal is never notified, nobody in that school is going to know."

Pohlman: What happened? Most of the juveniles got around the law on a technicality.

While they were convicted after the law was passed, they committed the sex crimes before the law took effect.

Russo: "The incident happened prior to the law passing."

Pohlman: They avoided having to register. We also found a lot of plea reductions. Eighteen of the 48 juvenile sex convictions involved plea reductions.

Twenty-five rape charges were reduced to just nine rape convictions.

"As the No. 1 prosecutor in the juvenile system, are you concerned by what I'm telling you?"

Naso: "Of course, I'm concerned."

Pohlman: While those plea reductions probably wouldn't have changed the numbers who had to register, we did find one case the court simply missed.

A 16-year-old who was convicted of gross sexual imposition who wasn't registered and should have been.

Havranek: "It's hard for us to do our job if we don't receive the information so we can get the information out to the schools and the public can be notified."

Pohlman: The head of the Cuyahoga County Sheriff's Department Sex Offenders Unit thinks the system missed more.

Havranek: "I think that we probably should have gotten more than that."

Pohlman: And because more weren't gotten and registered, they are still kept a secret in our schools.

Decolibus: "I think this law has failed up and down the line to do what it was intended to do."

Mom: "That should be changed."

Jordan: "You may see us begin to ya know re-examine this. That's why people like you exist."