Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Protecting our children

I just saw a very compelling Oprah episode. Today's show chronicled several horrible child abduction cases and revealed the inner thoughts of sex offenders who are walking our very streets as we speak. As a mother of 2, I have often dreaded the thought of someone taking our children or taking advantage of them. To think that someone could be stalking our children and plotting an abduction attempt when I'm out with them is just a reality of the world we live in today. It's disgusting to think that there are people out there who prey on the most innocent and vulnerable members of our society.

If your state has a registry for convicted sex offenders it's important you know who they are, where they live, and to report any crime against a child to the FBI.
- For CA: Megan's Law
- Elsewhere: map sex offenders
- Or find your specific state's site through the FBI: State sex offender registry websites

But it's not enough to know where they live, because they don't stay where they live and about a quarter of them don't even comply with mandatory address reporting. It's kind of ironic that our system would trust criminals to obey the law and report when they move. We sometimes even forget to notify the state when we move for voter registration purposes. I know that some states have begun instituting tracking devices for offenders, which may be the only decent option at this time. It must be the priority of all citizens, whether they have children or not, whether they've had their child taken from them or not to protect America's children from becoming victims, so they can live without the fear of crime.

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