Yesterday, I reported again on the ongoing series that Dateline NBC is doing about Internet predators (you can read my first report here). Today, I want to point out a Department of Justice Web site that you may want to check out. It is the National Sex Offender Public Registry. You may be surprised to find out who is or is not living near your neighborhood.
National Sex Offender Public Registry
www.nsopr.gov
I know that this isn’t the most fun topic to talk about, but we need to keep raising awareness in others if we are going to help protect children and teens from child predators. The National Sex Offender Public Registry is a cooperative effort between the federal government and state governments to make the public sex offender registry more accessible. You can search by name, state, zip code, county, city or town, or region. Your search results are listed by offender name and you are then shown a little bit of information about each offender. Typical information includes names, birthdates, aliases used, offenses committed, current legal status, and any pictures on file.
The National Sex Offender Public Registry takes its information directly from each state’s sex offender registry. Some states make more information public than others. For example, some states will give the age and gender victims, while other will only list the charge (e.g., aggravated sexual assault). If you would rather go to your state’s online sex offender registry, you can find each state’s Web site from a listing maintained by the FBI. Some state sites will let you search by street address, so you can type in your home address and see if any registered sex offenders live nearby.
While you may not be able to see if any registered sex offenders have used the Internet in any of their crimes, the National Sex Offender Public Registry is good way to get an idea of who is in the vicinity of your child. Granted, not all sex offenders are registered or keep their information up to date (even though it’s the law), but the registry is pretty comprehensive.
As always, if you have any information about a child who has exploited or know of individuals who are child predators, please contact your local law enforcement and go to CyberTipline.com to make a report.