by Web Stailey
I recently accessed the sex offender registry website and, upon typing in my address, I found ten convicted sex offenders living or working within five miles of my house. This was surprising since the nearest town is ten miles away. Sex crimes are bad enough, but nine of the men had been convicted of sex crimes against children, and only one of them had been convicted of one count. The other nine had all been convicted of at least two counts of sexual misconduct, child molestation, child solicitation, or sexual abuse during criminal confinement of a minor.
I decided to check the nearest town, and found that two men convicted of child molestation lived within 1000 feet of a school. It’s a small town of under 2,000 people, and there are three schools: elementary school, middle school, and a high school. The two living within 1000 feet of a school were living near the elementary school. This had me questioning how safe the children attending that school are. But I decided to check a larger town to see if the problem was worse.
I pulled up the list of sex offenders living within five miles of where I work, which is almost perfectly centered in South Bend, IN. I found 251 sex offenders, thirteen of whom had been convicted of at least one rape, sixteen had been convicted of sexual battery, and nearly 200 had been convicted of some sexual offense against a child, with about 30 others committing some other sexual offense.
Nearly half of the over 80 schools within the five mile radius had child molesters living within 1000 feet of the school. One elementary school had two child molesters and a rapist living within 1000 feet of it. South Bend has about 500,000 residents, but to find so many sex offenders living so close to elementary schools was still shocking.
I couldn’t force myself to believe this was common, so I checked Boston, MA’s sex offender registry list, and found 152 offenders, but their crimes weren’t listed and I don’t know who had been convicted of what crime. This, of course, made it impossible for me to decide if any child molesters were living near schools, but there were still sex offenders in close proximity.
I checked West New York, NY’s list and found 380 sex offenders. Most of them did not have specific crimes listed, but almost all of them lived within a half-mile of schools, and over half of them lived within 1000 feet of schools.
Los Angeles, CA, turned up 1742 sex offenders. Over half have been convicted of sex crimes against children, and nearly a quarter of them convicted of rape. Of the over 100 schools, fewer than 20 did not have sex offenders living within 1000 feet.
Denver, CO, turned up 720 sex offenders, nearly all of them located on the city’s north side. Washington, D.C., a city of 500,000, has 914 registered sex offenders, nearly all of them having committed sex crimes against children. The more I looked, the more disgusted I got.
The more research I did on the crimes the more I realized there was a pattern in sentencing. Child molesters often had less severe sentences than those convicted of sexual battery, and they had less severe sentences than rapists. Rape is a violent crime, and should be punished severely, but why do those who sexually abuse children often not spend time in jail? Instead they are given probation, and many end up being convicted of sexual abuse a few years later. The laws protecting sexual offenders have put the safety of children at risk and must be changed immediately.
(Source: http://www12.familywatchdog.us/)
Web Stailey lives in north-central Indiana, near South Bend. He is a 20 years-old college student with a deep compassion for social matters and helping society whenever possible. Web plans to be a lawyer after he gradulates so that he may dedicate his time to serving the victims of crimes and the interest of the public in general.
