I have various philosophical problems with public disclosure of sex offender addresses. If folks are dangerous, keep them locked up. If they’ve served their time for their crime, they’re done with it.
That’s may be simplistic, but many philosophical stances are.
And, nevertheless, I couldn’t resist following a link to Family Watchdog, which takes those registries in vairous localities and plugs them into Google Maps to show you all the registered sex offenders in a 10 mile radius or so. With pictures. And descriptions of their convictions.
Not that I’m sure what I would do with such information — keep my eyes open for someone named X, or who looks like Y? Not worry unless it’s just up the street? Compare the list of names to the names of parents in Katherine’s class?
Still … couldn’t resist.
The term ‘sex offender’ is an awfully wide net. It includes the guy who had a 16-year-old girlfriend when he was 19 and the guy who spends years gaining respect in the local church and becoming a scoutmaster so he can…
A good point. These are “registered sex offenders,” which definition would vary from state to state, I’d imagine. The map key (identifying the different colored boxes) mentions “Offense against children,” “Rape,” “Sexual Battery,” and “Other Offense.” The vast majority of folks in my area are “Other,” which isn’t terribly helpful (aside from just knowing that they are on my state’s Sex Offender Registry).