Monitoring the Sex Offender Registry

Written by dad - 3 Comments

If you’re thinking of buying a house, and even if you’re not, it’s probably a good idea to check out your state’s sex offender registry just to see what’s out there. Especially if you have kids. After all, who wants to move into a new neighborhood only to find out that Chester the Molester lives next door? Certainly not me. When we found the house that we ended up buying I made a quick trip to our states sex offender registry just to make sure we weren’t in for any ugly surprises.

Fortunately, our search came up clean and we went ahead with the purchase. While finding and checking our state’s sex offender registry wasn’t a particularly onerous task, it struck me at the time that the world could use a one-stop shop for this sort of thing. Well, it seems that somone out there was reading my mind…

Tonight I ran across FamilyWatchdog, which is a national sex offender registry. Not only does this site integrate data from all of the individual state sites, but it also has a really nifty clickable map interface that lets you click on individual registered offenders for details, or click on schools for details on the nearest registered offender. And on top of everything else, it lets you sign up for alerts (either e-mail or phone) in case a registered sex offender moves into your neighborhood.

While it sucks that such things are necessary, this is one site that’s definitely worth checking out.

Published on July 14th, 2006 - 3 Comments
Filed under: Child Safety
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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

A few months ago, a kid from Canada used the Maine sex offender registry to look up a few dozen sex offenders. He then drove over to two of them’s houses and killed them. When police cornered him, he shot himself.
Comment by Blaine Moore — Jul 14th 2006 @ 2:23 pm
That is the exception Blaine. Although I’m unsure whether I’m in favour of these registers or not, it’s a real worry when you are a parent.

I’ve written a post today about a paedohile political party in Holland – what is the world coming too?
Comment by Erica — Jul 17th 2006 @ 9:30 am
It’s worth keeping in mind also that a “sex offender” can be anyone from an incorrigible child molester to a guy caught on the wrong side of an inebriated disagreement over consent when in college.
Comment by Matt — Jul 22nd 2006 @ 3:05 am