How To Trace a Sex Offender in Your Locality
With almost one million registered sex offenders, the United States is the country with the largest number of sex offenders in the world. Moreover, anyone can become a victim of sexual abuse regardless of age, gender, race, or sexual orientation.
Although there are so many precautions that everyone wants to consider taking when it comes to moving to a new area, town, or state, the idea of your child or the elderly, or yourself being exposed to sexual abuse needs to be taken into consideration. This forces individuals, especially parents, to ensure that they create a safe environment for their children by conducting a sex offender search in their area.
Research shows that one out of 10 children will have experienced sexual abuse by the time they are 18. In that, one in seven girls and one in 25 boys. Although 70-80% of childhood sexual abuse comes from people close to the child and family, there is still a higher percentage of children being sexually abused by strangers.
In addition, most of the sexually abused, especially male children and adults, do not talk about it. This means you must ensure safety, including which places and routes your child or yourself shouldn’t walk alone.
Here are the different ways you can find a sex offender near you:
Lookup sex offenders on the official registry
When you want to trace an offender anywhere, you must search the local sex offender registry. This is because the US National Law requires all states from the local level to maintain a database for all sex offenders. In addition, each state has its set requirement for all individuals charged with a sexual offense.
Different states have a set of offenses that require registration. Some states have stringent laws requiring anyone charged with public urination, peer experimentation by children and teens, or violent, predatory sexual assaults.
According to the Human Rights Watch, children as young as nine have reportedly been included on the registry for engaging in sexual experimentation with their peers per the federal Adam Walsh Act. Furthermore, 25% of the registrants are juvenile offenders.
You can access your local sex offender registry from the sheriff’s department or local police department, depending on who is responsible for registering, compiling, and providing access to the sex offender registry to the public.
Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website
The Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website (DSNSOW), in collaboration with the US Department of Justice (DOJ), has a search engine for sex offenders in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, five US territories, and Native American tribal governments.
You may search for someone by name or provide criteria to acquire a list of reported sex offenders in your city, town, and zip code, even narrowing your search to a certain distance from your house.
However, there are some restrictions, as where you live will determine how much information you receive; some jurisdictions don’t disclose much about previous offenders or merely ask them to register briefly.
On the other hand, some states are criticized for providing excessive data. For instance, the Florida registration contains the names of those who have visited the state for at least three days, do not reside there and have been struck off other registries. As a result, it is advisable to search the database of your own state for information.
Look at the Local Offender Map
A local offender map, for instance, the Family Watchdog offers a color-coded map of safe areas for those that are dangerous for anyone to be at regarding sex offenders. The map will indicate, or you can search using, the sex offender’s name, address, and proximity to nearby schools and playgrounds. In addition, the website will have a list of all the charges against the offender, their mugshot, and IDs.
All registrants will receive an update when a sex offender enters or leave your region. However, this depends on the state laws against sex offenders.
Sex Offender Tracking Apps
There are so many mobile applications that you can download over at Appstore and Playstore to monitor an offender’s whereabouts, for instance, the free OffenderWatch Parent app. These apps help you know your child’s whereabouts if they enter a red-flag sex offender zone.
The software actively notifies you if your child is close to the house of a registered sex offender or if a registered sex offender is attempting to contact your child by phone, text, or email on your behalf in exchange for a fee. These apps offer:
- Find Offenders: you can click and see any offender near you. You can also search using their names or address.
- Find My Family. You can know the location of your child on the sex offender map.
- Offender Move-In Alert. You can also subscribe to get free email alerts from local law enforcement should a registered offender relocate into your neighborhood.
- Location Alerts. You can get alerts when your child lingers near a registered offender’s address.
- Contact Alerts. You can get alerts when your child is contacted by a registered sex offender by email, chat, or call.
- Check-in. this allows your child to check in at intervals to let you know they are okay.
Conduct Your Own Research Using Various Websites
While it’s vital to look at the registration and become aware of your neighborhood’s residents, you should keep in mind that 95% of new sex offenses are perpetrated by people who are not listed on a sex-offender registry. Furthermore, not strangers but someone the victim knows perpetrates more than 75% of all sex offenses.
Some websites will help you in knowing the truth about a person. As a result, if you are uncomfortable about your neighbor, you may submit their names, sex, age, and race to some websites like BeenVerified.com, Intelius, TruthFinder, or Spokeo.
These websites will provide all information available online and on government databases, including if they are sex offenders or have been charged with a related offense. Furthermore, some sex offenders do not register according to the state requirements; thus, you may not find them on the state or local sex offender registry.
Hire a Private Detective or Lawyer
Children believe that their parents can protect them from any danger. If the sex offender records are expunged or sealed, the sex offender lives in your area without the local citizens knowing. Besides, when you search the state, county, or city sex registry, you will not be able to find them.
Suppose you are not convinced about your neighbor or are still unsatisfied with search results on the state or county sex offender registry. In that case, you can hire a lawyer or private detective to investigate the issue. Private detectives and lawyers may gain access to public records that are not available online or on public records. A lawyer or private detective may access even expunged and sealed records.
Using Third-Party Websites
You can also locate a sex offender using a third-party website that offers access to public records. Most of these websites are free and easy to utilize. You can visit your google search engine and find your preferred website.
To find them, you must have a name, address, zip code, sex, gender, or approximate age. However, note that not all websites are free. Some will charge a fee for accessing the records; some are very expensive.
Again, these third-party websites are not affiliated with any government entity; thus, they may provide false, inaccurate, outdated, or no search results.
What to do after finding a sex offender
Some states have no restrictions on where a sex offender can live, and some live near schools and children’s playgrounds. In such a situation, there is nothing much you can do. However, you can educate your child on the basic guidelines they can maintain to keep themselves safe from sex offenders and predators.
In addition, with all the care and safety you can ensure to protect your child or yourself from a sex offender, sometimes you or your child may be a victim of sex offenses. In that case, you need to be prepared by teaching your children various strategies and equipping them with the knowledge to ensure that they can defend themselves or try when they encounter a sex offender.
These strategies include the following:
Avoiding Strangers
Teaching them some warnings carefully, like avoiding talking, going, or receiving gifts from strangers, may be one of the guidelines. In addition, you can ask them to walk in pairs or more when coming home from school and vice versa. Although it may make no difference if they are little, sometimes enticing two children may be difficult compared to one.
Parents can introduce some questions and answers to their children to help them understand what they are saying. This applies to entering strangers’ homes, even the neighbors.
Introduce them to the sex talk
Using words they can understand, all parents should teach their children about sexual organs and sex, especially to young teens and children almost entering their teen life. Note that the earlier the child knows about the “no-touch places,” the better, as they can protect themselves from even their peers.
Besides, when they have such knowledge, they may be able to say no to sexual activities, and they may be able to report when something happens to them.
Have a trustworthy secondary caregiver
Parents sometimes run late from work or meetings and have an unscheduled babysitter. As a parent, you should have one or two persons you can trust to take care of your child or children while you are away.
You need to notify your child that they can pick them up from school, church, or the playground. This is to ensure that the child understands that you trust that person. However, you should also know that most victims, especially children below nine, fall victim to people they trust. This may include family members, coaches, teachers, siblings, and friends.
Create awareness among the child
As a parent, you can introduce teens to available resources to help deal with the issue of sex offenders. This is because most children and teens victims of sex offenders fall victim to people they trust and know very well. You may create awareness by giving them reading and educational material like videos, books, and websites that help answer questions like:
- How to deal with a sex offender
- How to know someone is a sex offender
- How to protect yourself from a sex offender
- How to report a sex offender
- What to do after an encounter with a sex offender
Notify your neighbors after you find out that someone is a sex offender
Sometimes, especially when you acquire information, not on the sex offender registry or new offenders, you can notify the police or relevant authority to help create awareness of the individual. You may begin so by offering the information to the school board, who can then forward the information to the parents of the children in the school.
In addition, you can post the information in public places notifying children and adults to be on the lookout for such individuals. Besides, safety should always come first, and distributing such information is not illegal. However, you may be charged when you use the information to harass or discriminate against the individual based on their background.
Moving to a new area
Although moving to a new area is not necessary to protect yourself or your child from a sex offender, sometimes it is the best option. However, you should note that sex offenders are everywhere; they are just not on the sex offender database yet.
But, if there is a serial offender or a predator on the loose, then moving is not a bad option. But before you move, you need to consider your child and whether the new place will best suit your child or will limit them.
Offer Community Support
Some, but not all, sex offenders who are reintegrating sex offenders into society typically want to succeed. Their ability to live successful, crime-free lives depends partly on the areas in which they reside. According to research, people with a criminal record have a better chance of successfully reintegrating into society when they have access to social assistance, housing, and work.
Naturally, you might desire to keep the offender away from your community. But you should not assume the worst. Besides, some of the individuals on the sex offender registry were wrongly accused and ended up in jail, thus registering as sex offenders. You may welcome such a member, and they may change for the better.
