Familywatchdog.us A Valuable Tool for Finding Sex Offenders

Familywatchdog.us is a national sex offender registry that lists all registered sex offenders in the United States. With child sex crimes on the rise, people are increasingly worried that their children might live near a sex offender. Thanks to Familywatchdog.us, you can input your street address and find sex offenders that live in your area, including photos, addresses, physical description, and their convictions. You can also input a person's name to find out if they're registered. In my case, I used to it to find out where my friend's rapist lived after he was released from jail.

Why I Used Familywatchdog.us to Find Sex Offenders

Several years ago I found out that my friend was repeatedly molested by a friend of the family. It didn't click until years later, but I remembered that he would lurk around us when I visited her. Sometimes he would lean down and touch my neck, sometimes breathe softly on it. He always acted weird, but I never thought much of it.

After he was convicted of repeated sexual assault, he was sentenced to a whopping two years in prison. That'll teach him, right? Naturally I was concerned for her (and to a point, mine) safety, since her family wasn't cutting off contact from him. Then I learned of a site called Familywatchdog.us, a national sex registry.

By typing in my address, I learned his location and the location of other sex offenders. He was located way over in the neighboring state -- I live on the border, so this isn't uncommon -- and learned the location of three other sex offenders, one additional person I recognized from town. I also saw that his sex conviction was lowered to a one time sexual assault, which wasn't true.

One of the sex offenders in my town also lives five or six blocks away from me. That's scary for a couple of reasons: obviously, I don't like living near rapists. I'm obviously not going to strike up a intellectual conversation with them. The second part, which is more shocking, is that I also live near an activity center. Probably a child rapist's heaven. I'm not sure why they placed a sexual offender so near an activity center, but I don't think he has serious convictions. In other words, he hasn't done anything yet that would cause him to have an interesting time with little Joey. I guess time will unroll that ball of yarn, though.

Other Things I Learned About Sex Offenders Using Familywatchdog.us

There were a couple of other things I learned while using Familywatchdog.us:

- Sex offenders are all around us. If you haven't already, input your address and see what shows up. I live in a town smaller than 17,000 people, with Super Wal-Mart being the extent of our social forays. I had no idea sex offenders existed in my area. I thought you could only find sex offenders 'up north', up around St. Paul and Minneapolis.

- You'll be surprised what you find. Familywatchdog.us really dispels the myth that every man with a bushy beard and 'that creepy look' really is a rapist. While I was searching for my friend's rapist, I found a sex offender near my town that was a woman. An attractive, pleasant-looking woman. How many times do you look at a beautiful, slim woman and think "Well gee, she might want to rape my children!"? Probably never. I wasn't expecting to find that!

- You can help police find suspects. On the main page of Familywatchdog.us, this is what one story says:

"My dear friend [name removed] was murdered back in May of this year. She was only 24 years old. She went missing after a cell phone record showed she was talking to a [registered sex offender's name removed]. He wasn't brought in for questioning until my sister went onto your site and found that he was a convicted sex offender, several times over. It may have been too late for [name removed] by the time we found out, but because of your site, we were able to find her body and lay her to rest. It's hard to know that such a tragedy could happen to you or someone you love. But it can."

So using Familywatchdog.us to find suspects might actually aid in murder or rape cases.

Why Familywatchdog.us is Incredibly Useful
I'm sure you know someone who's been raped. I know a handful of people that have been raped too. I know that sex offenders probably scare you too, and if you have children, you don't want them near any sex offenders. By using Familywatchdog.us, you can protect your family from sex offenders and keep informed. If it wasn't for Familywatchdog.us, I wouldn't know about the sex offenders in my town, especially the one I see in town often. Use this site to stay protected -- for yourself, for your kids, and for ones you love. Sex offenders are usually repeat offenders, and you don't want to be that next victim.

Sources:
Family Watch Dog, "National Sex Offender Registry", Familywatchdog.us
Jim Siegal, "Tough Time for Sex Offenders", The Columbus Dispatch