A screenshot from mapsexoffenders.com shows the area surrounding San Jose State University. The red balloons mark the locations of convicted sex offenders. The blue balloon is where I used to live.
I am not, by nature, an overly suspicious person. I tend to trust people and take them at their word. I live with a blind trust that no harm will ever come to me or those I love.
We live in a fascinating age. An age of confluences; where technology, culture, commerce, law, human behaviors, and ideologies merge together in a vast and free flowing stream of information.
While living in San Jose, within a few blocks of the university, I had often heard rumors that our neighborhood was home to people, men specifically, that had convicted sex crimes. Many of these convicted sex offenders had committed crimes against children. Most had served time and were now back living in the world.
I had never given much thought to where men convicted of sex crimes against children should live once they had paid their debt to society until now.
I had never considered that there could be as many as 30 sex offenders living within a 10 block area of my house in San Jose.
Never.
I never imagined, that is, until I read a short article in Newsweek. The article talks about how a relatively new website called Mapsexoffenders.com can map a sex offender's profile and match it to a specific address. The addresses are then overlaid onto a Google map.
Big Brother Where Art Thou?
On the Internet, of course.
Looking at a Google map littered with little red balloons marking the locations of known sex offenders is a very sobering visual encounter. When a red balloon is activated a link profiles the sex offender's picture, name, address, and crime.
Since 1996, the passage of Megan's Law requires states to alert communities about sex offenders who move into their areas. Almost all states now have online registries of convicted sex offenders. California, for example, has more than 63,000 persons who are registered as sex offenders. According to the U.S. Department of Human Services, the rate of child abuse in this country is rising. In 2000, 12 out of every 1,000 children had been abused by adults.
I think there are a lot of privacy issues related to mapping our neighbors on websites like mapsexoffenders.com.
I can understand how privacy advocates would argue that mapping sex offenders and profiling them online violates an individual's constitutional right to privacy.
At the same time, I can see where parents might find value in having this sort of information at their fingertips. This is a complex issues that deserves much thought. However, what does seem to be clear is that with use of technology and the Internet people can may be able to better protect their families and make more informed decisions about where to live.