All 50 US states join web site listing convicted sex offenders

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US authorities said all 50 states have joined a national web site that lists addresses and other details of convicted sex offenders.

The states of South Dakota and Oregon were added last week to the registry, which "provides real-time access to public sex offender data nationwide with a single Internet search," the Department of Justice said in a statement.

The online database includes more than 500,000 convicted sex offenders who are required to register their address with local authorities.

The government-sponsored site "allows parents and concerned citizens to search existing public state and territory sex offender registries beyond their own states," the Justice Department said.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the completion of the National Sex Offender Public Registry was "good news" for parents and police. "The constant effort to safeguard our children from sex offenders is never finished, but today's announcement marks a clear accomplishment on the side of protection," Gonzales said in a statement.

The site includes physical descriptions of registered sex offenders, lists the crimes they have committed, the type of car they drive and their home address.

Some civil liberties groups have expressed concerns the web site could spark vigilante attacks and have called for users to register when gaining access to the data base.

Oregon launched its site last Thursday and the registry received some 250,000 hits by 4 pm, according to local media.

I've always thought there is a certain logical fault with this legal-societal game of "whack-a-mole" vis-a-vis the public registration of sex offenders. Unless society goes for the death penalty, the reality is that some day, the person in jail will be released. Then what? If they spend the rest of their lives being chased from town to town, they'll literally be forced down into a life of crime, "living off the grid" as it were.

What I think might be in order is a sort of "City of Refuge" system, where you have designated towns spread across the geography, where it's public knowledge that the only citizens of the town are the sex offenders, or those who voluntarily choose to live with 'em. Rules would be a lot tighter in these towns. Free computers and high-speed internet for everybody. All of it painstakingly tracked down to the last byte. TV? All you can watch, every bit of it documented. Mail? Sure, it gets screened in advance, but you can have all you want. UPS? FedEx? Sure, they deliver, to the central dispatch, which will then "free of charge" pre-inspect your packages then deliver them to you. Jewelry? Sure, everybody gets a free designer ankle bracelet with a custom adjustment and battery change annually. Ain't no schools in this town for obvious reasons. This isn't a town for kids.

So why would anybody want to live here? For one, the offenders who truly want a second chance at life would have one. For two, everybody else in society would benefit from knowing where all the 'bad guys' are. Rather than being a huge government institution where the taxpayers pay for every cent of it, this would instead be a town where folks can either succede or starve, all at their own hand. Sure the "Big Brother" stuff would be an expensive, but a lot cheaper than running a prison. Speaking of prison, oh yeah, the recidivism issue... They re-offend, it's public hanging time. Hang 'em high.

Just a thought.

It's interesting to see now that "sex offender" equates with "child sex offender" virtually 100% of time.

"allows parents and concerned citizens to search existing public state and territory sex offender registries beyond their own states,

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the completion of the National Sex Offender Public Registry was "good news" for parents and police

"The constant effort to safeguard our children from sex offenders is never finished,

There are four in my zip code.

A two-time rapist, with many years between convictions.
A rapist/indecent assault convict whose address is listed as "homeless." Useful, that.
A 21-year-old who lives in an apartment building a quarter mile away, who was convicted in 2002 of"UNNATURAL AND LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 16" committed (I think, maybe this is the conviction date): 7/30/2002
The site also says:
Pursuant to [statute cite], the individuals who appear on the following notifications have been designated a Level 3 Sex Offenders by the Sex Offender Registry Board. The Board has determined that these individuals have a high risk to reoffend and that the degree of dangerousness posed to the public is such that a substantial public safety interest is served by active community notification.

Sweet. Now let me get this straight... this perv is high-risk, but he's out. Five years after Unnatural and... whatever. And he's my neighbour. Oh frabjous joy.
Indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 -- two offences. I don't recognize the street. The conviction is ten years old.

I'm suspicious of the hit count. I live in a city of 80,000 which is notorious for high crime, and we only have four of these skells on the books? Two black, two white which seems to match our demographics roughly (I'd say without looking it up in the Census that the city is half white and half nonwhite, but the nonwhite half is quite variegated).

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

Boy, after looking at the five in my area, I wonder is it a requirement that they all live so close to so many libraries and schools! /sarc Sheesh!

This is just scary. There are so many other places they could live but they live smack dab in the triangle of all the schools and where children hang out. I can see now why parents watch just about everything their child does in this day and age. So sad. But love the site.

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