Locating Sex Offenders in Your New Neighborhood

Taking Advantage of Local Resources to Know Who's Who

May 31, 2009

Most people who are buying a new home are often concerned with several characteristics of their neighborhood such as the schools, traffic, and especially their neighbors.

When purchasing a home prospective buyers have many concerns. Among them are the safety of their loved ones. This safety involves:

Most real estate agents will be very conscientious of pointing out the presence of the first two concerns, but few would ever take it upon themselves to stay up to date on the local sex offender registry since it would take away from their time with clients, and could eliminate many potential sales from going through.

For these reasons home buyers must be proactive in ensuring that their new home is everything that they are looking for. For this purpose a very proficient site in taking the necessary steps is familywatchdog.us. On familywatchdog.us any user can easily navigate their neighborhood by typing in their street, city, state, and zip code. Following this, a view of several square miles will be given with different colored squares.

Offenders who work in the local area are also noted. Upon clicking a square the offender's photo will be displayed with their address, possible aliases, details of their conviction, and their physical characteristics such as height, weight, and special markings to include scars and tattoos. Additionally, a viewer will see how close any offender is to any school in the area.

After finding out where offenders are it is time to view their offenses and come to an independent conclusion. For example, some offenders were convicted when they were teenagers and are now in their forties.

The most powerful tool one can have is knowledge, and knowledge is best used to leverage in one's favor. When potential home owners leverage this information to make a more informed decision they are truly working in the best interest of themselves and their families.

It is important to note that many offenders on the familywatchdog site only have one offense. However, this does not mean that their conviction that may be decades old was the last time they committed a sexual crime, and it certainly does not mean that their convicted offense was their first and only.

Last August a 40 year old Lake Providence, LA man was convicted of sexual battery as noted on familywatchdog.us. Two months ago he was convicted again for "indecent behavior with juveniles," as note within the details of the website. It is possible that he had been abusing others for years but it only came out in the light of his recent battery conviction.

Other Sources to Find Sex Offenders

Along with familywatchdog's national registry are many others. They can be just as valuable.

These sites, like familywatchdog, have listed offenders based on their conviction record and do their best to stay up to date on their whereabouts so that common citizens have the power that only knowledge can bring.

The copyright of the article Locating Sex Offenders in Your New Neighborhood in Consumer Responsibility is owned by Christopher Pascale. Permission to republish Locating Sex Offenders in Your New Neighborhood in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.