Sex Offender Registration Force Some to Hide
In Cleveland the county Sheriff checks to see if registered sex offenders are in fact living where they say they do. Determining the currently location of a sex offender helps law enforcement and the community to know if the sex offender is in compliance or maybe hiding and possibly up to no good. One would think if they are compliant, they are trying to assimilate.
Certainly they can be up to no good if they are compliant with the registry, but this is just another reason to check on them. In Cleveland about 2/3rds claim to live at a mens homeless shelter. But reports state none of them have been there in months.
The Plain Dealer reports Increasingly stringent limitations on where sex offenders can live have driven many to register under false addresses and live off the grid — beyond monitoring and treatment, say sex offender management and re-entry specialists.
And as the county’s list of sex offenders grows to more than 3,000, with fewer resources to monitor them, it is impossible to know how many might have registered under one location and are living at another.
Many state laws restrict sex offenders from living within 1000 feet of a school or park for obvious reasons. In the plains of Africa, the lions follow the herds of gazelle to stalk their prey. Sex offenders go where their prey is. In response laws were set up to prohibit such behavior. In some states where no laws exists many towns have their own ordinances with the same restrictions. This “not in my back yard” strategy seems to be backfiring in many municipalities.
Regardless, it is necessary for you to keep tabs in your own neighborhood of who lives there and their history. Checking names to determine if they are a sex offender is often effective in determining if they have been convicted of an offence.
Robert Siciliano is a Personal Security Expert and Adviser to Intelius.com. For more information see Intelius at Sex Offender Check to reduce your chances of encountering a bad guy. See him discussing Sex Offenders on Fox Boston. (Disclosures)
