The Texas Department of Public Safety unveiled a redesigned sex offender Web site on Wednesday.
The revamped site allows users to subscribe to e-mail notifications about changes in an offender’s record or ZIP Code.
It also provides more precise mapping to allow users to search by name, address ZIP Code and county. That also will show how close the offender lives to the user’s address.
Other new features provide the offender’s complete work address, whether he attends a college or university, his occupational license information and a list of his in-state and out-of-state offenses.
–News 8, Austin
While I will agree that crimes of a sexual nature are bad, I have never agreed with having these online databases of information on people who commit them. Now they have made it even easier for people to find out even more about these people, some of whom do go on to live normal lives and never commit another crime after doing their time.
I’ve always said if we are going to have this information –and this much of it– online for sex offenders, we need to have the same information available for all major crimes. I’d be interested in knowing if one of my neighbors was a serial car thief, a burglar, an arsonist, had ever beat the crap out of anyone, had robbed a credit union, or embezzled a million dollars from their employer. Or … I’d rather not know anything about them at all as far as past crimes go. Stamping the people who commit one kind of crime with a big red letter for the rest of their lives, when there are crimes that are really just as awful, has always seemed less than fair to me.
Three things to ponder. If these people are so dangerous, why are they out of jail? Why are these awareness campaigns primarily aimed at middle-aged women? And is this just another distraction to divert attention from the economic problems of government, business and individuals?
In the state’s defense, this data is already public record; it’s simply being made more accessible.
The current mayor of Albuquerque, in a previous term, made a big fuss about sex offenders from other states relocating to his jurisdiction. He couldn’t give enough interviews. When the database was finally pried loose by the local paper and it was revealed that over 99% of the registered offenders were local residents, he never mentioned it again. Politicians love to Hitlerize the sheep…because it works! For a while, anyway.
If these people are so dangerous, why are they out of jail?
That’s pretty much always been my main point. If they are so dangerous we have to keep tabs on them and make it easy for people to know every little detail about them, then why let them out at all?
I’d rather know where murderers live personally. They get out of jail too. Or any of the other crimes I listed. For that matter, how about a database of everyone who is taking medication for mental issues? Don’t we have the right to know how crazy our neighbors are too?
If people commit and crime and are put in jail after a trial and serve their time and get out, they shouldn’t be harassed for the rest of their lives, especially for one subset of crimes.
And yeah, the whole thing is targeted at women. I have friends who must check the thing non-stop. Thankfully, it hasn’t occurred to my mother to look yet. She would, I assure you, freak right out. My hometown is very small, and even it has it’s share of people on the database.