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Early Addition
Since Google released the API for their Google Maps, mash-ups have been turning up left and right showing the location of everything from potholes to pizza slices. Any database with geographic locations can basically be popped onto the maps. So it makes sense that someone would put together a map that shows registered sex offenders. Just find your location, zoom in and there you can find all of the registered sex offenders in your (or any other) area. From there you can find pictures, arrest records, license plate numbers and more. As one friend described finding the site: "I was like, creepy. And then there went my afternoon."
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we are in the age of accepting big brother into our lives. who needs the police when we police ourselves.
WOW! I'm just speachless when I saw that page but I see it as a good thing when you have children around!
Why? Are you going to memorize the faces and be extra careful around anyone who looks like an offender.
I think this goes against the spirit of the US legal system. Obviously IF the legal system was infallible, then great, it would be good to know if there really was a risk, but there must be a percentage of these folks who just got screwed by the courts and are now permanently branded. Which come to think of it might be an even better system, let's just brand their foreheads with a big P for Pedophile, it's not that much different.
I don't like how I feel reading all these names... weren't these people punished already?
Interesting to note that some of the photographs show men clearly wearing glasses, and yet next to "Corrective Lenses" in their "bio" it says "NO."
Interesting that there are NO sex offenders living in Park Slope... but plenty in the outlying, sketchier areas... Will they be pushed into the Gowanus Canal as realtors continue to stretch the neighborhood's borders?
these 'people' should be glad they are allowed to inhabit the same city as their victims - locking up and throwing away the key never sounded better! I'm all for putting up a wall around williamsburg and dumping them in from a chute!
Its nice that they have a google maps listing for sex offenders, but when will they make one for preschool locations?
People keep complaining that they've been punished already, but I see people there with "1 day to 1 year" sentences for child molestation and I can confidently reply, No.
The system just doesn't work, and until it's fixed, this is the best we can do.
I don't know if I'm for or against this; my main question is how is this information useful? To what practical use can you put this knowledge? There are a few sex offenders living in my vicinity - how does that change anything? Information is not always the solution.
They need to GPS tag all levels of sex offenders, then link the data to this map - nationwide - live.
In Smith v. Doe (00 U.S. 01-729 2003) the Supreme Court held that Sex Offender Registry Laws do not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause of the constitution because the purpose of the law is regulatory and not punitive, even though it applies retroactively to offenders who were convicted prior to passage of the statute. Personally, I think the argument that registering as a sex offender after serving a prison sentence does not constitute a form of punishment for the offender is pretty tenuous, but it should be noted that the average rate of sex offense recidivism for child molesters is 12.7%, and 18.9% for rapists over a four to five year period.
You can find more statistics about sex offense recidivism here:
www.sexoffender.com/sorecidivism_review.html
You can read the Supreme Court decision here:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=01-729
I cannot understand your friend's southern Cali valley language--he said he "was like, creepy" but did he actually mean he "felt creeped-out"?
I personally can't wait for the mashup that combines the sex offender map with the HotOrNot map.