Have you ever done a search of your neighborhood to see if a sex offender lives there? I have. It's frightening. They are everywhere.

I have a friend who found out her 4 year-old daughter's best friend's father across the street was one. Her daughter was going over there to play all the time. She didn't find out until a fellow neighbor went knocking on doors to alert everyone. Then my friend did some investigating of her own and realized it was true. She was very freaked out and told the mother her daughter was not allowed to step foot in her house again.

Alabama is talking about limiting sex offenders from living near a college or university in this story.

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20080508/NEWS/597087101/1007

I have looked it up and found that I have a sex offender living barely within a mile of me. His crime was not as terrible as some of the others, but it was still a crime. He had sex with a 16 year old when he was 24. Not a good decision, but not as sickening in my eyes as a 50 year old man doing the same thing. I actually knew about it before notification went up at my daycare. I try to keep a check on it regularly.

Here is the link to check and see if you have a sex offender near you:

http://www.sheriffalerts.com/cap_main.php?office=53527

It is terribly frightening. And what's worse, there are many more out there that aren't registered. There is going to have to be a better way to keep track of them. I've heard such horror stories I'm afraid to let my LO out of my sight for a second in public.

Generally speaking, it's not the stranger pedophiles that are the problems, it's those known to us. That's why I personally don't think the sex offender notification laws are that helpful and are more of a PR mechanism than anything and that they only produce a false sense of security. The large majority of sexual assaults against children are perpetrated by family members or acquaintances. Here is a link to an article that discusses the issue, although with a focus on California statistics.

oops - don't know why the link didn't post, but here it is.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/05/01/news/top_sto.../22_39_364_30_05.txt

I agree LawMommy!

It said we have 6 in a 2 mile radius. doesn't look like any in our neighborhood.