Came across this site:

http://familywatchdog.us/

The site can show you s_e_x offenders near your house. Connecticut is not currently listed but they are suggesting that all states will be added by Oct. 20th.

Sounds like a good idea for me.

Personally, I don't have a problem with giving these people bracelets with GPS locators while they're on probation.

Get too close to a school and an alarm goes off. Get too close to one of their old victims and an alarm goes off.

Take it off and the alarm goes off.

Do they also have tie ins with pick axe handle manufacturers and tin badges labelled Official Vigilante for sale?

Simon, community vigilance is certainly in order for many sex offenders. Trouble is the poor 18 year old kid who got caught with is 17 year girlfriend is on the same list.

Do they also have photos? Bearing in mind that half of sex offenders in the States are under the age of 25, quite a lot must be quite dishy. And at least your kids will know they won't be wasting their time chatting them up.

It's not all good:

Man sues over false sex label
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/florida/dp-94099sy0sep29,0,6580160.story?coll=sfla-news-florida

"Virginia law relies on sex offenders to keep their current residency data up-to-date. If they move without updating the registry, state authorities typically won't know about the change of address unless the offender is arrested for another crime."

The whole thing is a false sense of security and the potential to mis-label people as sex offenders is huge. How you like it if your address ended up on the list?

Standard problem with government systems - the burden of proof shifts to the accused to prove they're innocent. The system is presumed to be perfect.

Police see a suspicious car outside your house. Normally they might come up and ring the bell to see if everything is okay, but your address hits positive in the sex offender registry (due to a typo on the house number, or NE instead of NW on the street), so instead they call SWAT and backup to kick in your door and crash the windows.

BTW, the city often doesn't pay to repair either the property or reputation damaged in such an action.

Philo

If a sex offender got anywhere near my childs school they wouldn't need an alarm going off.

Everyone would be quickly alerted by the gunshots I just fired into his chest.

You'd kill the guy who got his 17 year old girlfriend pregnant when he was 19?

Or the guy who developed photos of his kids taking a bath?

Or someone who had a copy of some of Traci Lords' early work?

You don't get to bitch about juries anymore - you're the reason they exist.

Philo

You know there was a chap recently in the UK was found to have been taking his tag off.

Basically no-one really bothered to do anything about it the first FIVE times.

The sixth time he shot the wife a jeweller dead while conducting an armed raid of their shop.

The subsequent inquiry found numerous flaws, blah, blah, blah. It's not really anyones fault, apparently,[1] and nothing's been done. Don't hold out any hopes of virtual fence schemes actually working.





[1] Another modern British disease -- "systemic failures" aren't the fault of anyone, incluiding the muppets who specified or approved the failed system..

If sex offenders are such a danger to society that they can never be allowed to return to normal life, shouldn't we just give them life sentences in prison?

If we decide that 10 years in prison is sufficient punishment, then once they've served their time they should go free and clear.

Isn't that the point of "paying your debt to society"?