Do parents in the US know how fortunate you are to be informed when a convicted child molester moves nearby?

Question

Here in Australia we have NO CLUE. And the penalties for such crimes are getting ridiculous. They'd be lucky to get 10 years in prison.
Australia seems to copy so much about your culture! I really wish this was one aspect that was emulated.
Have you ever received such a notification? How did you react? Did it change your normal behaviour?

Jen - loved your tangent. Agreed 100%. I love to vote. I think it's an honour. People DIED so that I could have the right to vote. Cant understand why anyone would choose not to. (There are ways of 'getting around it' here, unfortunately)
I think if you dont vote then you have NO RIGHT to comment on elected officials.

Answer 1

I've never received a notice or anything like that, but there are websites that you can check. I live in Riverside County and through the Megan's Law Website I just type in my address and I can see a 15 mile radius from my house with flags on where registered sex offenders live and if you clcik on a flag it will tell you what their offense was. The only problem is, these are just registered sex offenders. For every one registered there is something like... I forget the exact number, but I believe it is 5 unregistered, not yet caught, etc. So, if you do the search and there are none in your area, it might end up giving you a false sense of security. But you are right, it's nice to know, and hopefully you guys will do something similar soon.

Answer 2

Yes, I've read the reports by town and it tells you exactly where they are living and working. There are virtually NO towns that don't have someone.

The issue I have with it is that they treat a 20 year old who had sex with a 16 year old the same way they treat a child rapist in terms of the notification.

Of course, I'm going to be far more nervous if the latter moves next door to me than if the first one does. But the notification doesn't give that level of detail.

Also someone arrested for public nudity can be put on the sex offender registry and again, I'd be far less apprehensive about a college-age streaker than a child molester.

So it's a good system but it certainly has its flaws.

In my belief, regardless of whether you have sex offenders in your town it is the parent's responsibility to know where their child is at all times. Never put that much trust in anyone when it comes to the safety of your child. I'd treat any stranger with caution.

Tangent: But we Americans could adapt some laws from you Aussies too. Personally, I would love a mandatory voting law in this country. I think voting should be as much a civic obligation as jury duty. :)

Wolf: You took the words right out of my mouth. We were broken into and robbed two months ago by our next door neighbors. It was horrible. It's not the stuff, but our sense of security. I still can't sleep at night.

This kid has been arrested before and is a known thief.

I want to know why why we weren't notified of that..being that we have a small child in the house and another on the way. I would have done even more to protect our home.

Answer 3

I live in the US, Texas. I live in a small town and we do not get notifications. We can however look up our sex offenders on the Texas DPS site. There is a man that lives here locally that has 4 children by his MUCH younger wife, he is in his early 40's and she is in her early 20's. She was a very young teen when her parents allowed him to move into their home. Before his moving in with them, he had molested a 6 year old little boy. Guess what he got for his devastating crime.......10 years......PROBATION!!! Now that he has served his "time", even though he is still to this day labeled HIGH RISK on the sex offender site and still reporting annually, he is allowed to walk into our school. Yes, he can walk right on into functions around all of these other children. While his children ask other children very x rated questions. One (in first grade) has even been caught on the school bus with an x-rated magazine. A faculty member of the school is supposed to escort him around while he is in the school, but they don't. A few of us parents have tried to do something, but get doors slammed in our faces. Even after the looks and the talk he hears from the parents, he has the nerve to come back.....But i guess that is what they do. And this is not a case of an older boyfriend and younger girlfriend that the parents got mad at and filed charges against either.

Answer 4

They get published in our paper- I think its only how many are registered and no names or addressess.

it made my family a bit more nervous and when I was a kid I was (my family had lived in the same house for 44 years) taught about strangers and self-defense. but for the most part we were/are comfortable with where we live- even with a high rate of sex offenders. you can't stress out over those things. like any kind of crime, you just try to prevent it and be prepared to protect your self and your property. but life must go on.

I don't know how I feel about the notifications. on one hand it can protect people, on the other hand the person has paid their debt to society. I'm not told when a theif moves in next door to me.
I hate to write an opinion for a class on the issue using my person experiences. as a woman with family, I felt good knowing where the bad guys were. but from a legal prospective, the choice wasn't easy.

Answer 5

When we bought our home, I looked online to see and it said there were none at all in our neighborhood. Well, after we lived there for a while, I looked at the website and they must have updated it! There were about 8!!! There was one on our street living 4 houses down on the other side of the street.

Answer 6

Yea we might know of the registered ones but there are other perverts out there running free that we don't know who they are.
I can view people in my area that have molested and raped through the internet, it gives a photo of them, their address and what they done.

Answer 7

I hear ya, same hear in Canada! Our legal system in very laughable...God Save The Queen!