Only in America | Offender Locator

Blogger peasontoast mentioned the ‘offender locator' in a recent post. It's a website with a map and the residential addresses of all sex offenders living in the States. By federal law sex offenders are meant to register where exactly they live at all times for record purposes, and also for obvious safety reasons. How very First World! So if you are moving to, say, Hancock, New York, you can find out whether your kids will be able to roam the streets in safety

I went to the site and zoomed into Hancock, because that is actually where I lived for a few months back in 2000, and low and behold, there are about 30 registered sex offenders living in a 20 mile radius! It’s scary. The full name of the offender, his/her mug shot and what they did, is right there on the screen. You can even get a bird’s eye view of their home.

Then I began a little quest to ascertain whether all areas are so densely populated with registered sex offenders (I was about to call them sickos, but the last thing I need is one of these guys suing me for defamation, so I just went with ‘registered sex offenders’). I visited my cousins in Brentwood, LA and counted roughly, wait for it… 93! Fort Lauderdale, Florida? Not much better.

Maybe when I have a little more time on my hands I'll check if it’s any safer inland. For now, it looks like whether you’re on the East Coast or West Coast you’re screwed. Or could be, if you didn’t have this clever site to show you which houses to throw eggs at.