News of Interest 071107
This story was splashed on KUSA and the Rocky Mountain News today. Apparently an internet entrepreneur had the ingenious idea of aggregating sex offender data into a single website, then charging a monthly subscription to scared soccer moms and chicken little suburbanites in various communities.
This morning the website, www.neighborhoodredalert.com littered Broomfield with flyers stating “A sex offender has moved in”, causing petrified moms to call 911 and thus flood emergency lines with obvious non-emergency calls.
Brilliant. This scam tops credit monitoring services. Sex offender info, (like your credit report), is already available online for free in most communities. Why the hell would you PAY some third rate website to e-mail you the same info? If their spelling is any measure of their accuracy I’d think twice: “Everyone to become aware!!! Fined (sic) out who they are and what their address is!” Oh and the Rocky mentions that one person who did sign up and provide their e-mail was immediately flooded with spam. Yes that was after deleting the dancing hamsters screensaver.
I don’t know whether I’m impressed or disgusted by neighborhoodalert.com’s ability to drum up irrational worries. But hey, who doesn’t harness the fears of the complacent these days? (For the children…)
Less panic inducing…
The BBC show Outlook, a superb producer of global human interest stories, has a new audio feature called “Where am I” Listeners share a brief audio file from their corner of the world. Sitting at my desk in Denver I can close my eyes and be on a train in India, or a kitchen in Laos, if only for a moment. Pretty cool.
These recordings can take whatever form you like – a snippet of a conversation, a beautiful soundscape, a rant, people singing or even a conventional interview. The only limiting factor is that they should only be 1 minute long (or less!)
In order to be published they’ll have to be of interest to people on the other side of the world from where the recording takes place. “I’m looking for recordings that take the listener to a particular place,” said producer Jasper Bouverie.
Recordings can be just as intriguing as pictures – taking the listener to interesting places through sound “Ideally we’ll get recordings that listeners will at least find curious – and hopefully there’ll be plenty of recordings that will make them laugh or smile.”
Interesting sidenote on your discussion about the sex offenders website. The American Planning Association’s Planning magazine recently had an article about the land use implications of laws related to where sex offenders can and cannot live. In some cities and states sex offenders are not allowed to live within a certain distance of schools, etc. Well, in the case of some cities like San Francisco, this means that there is virtually nowhere for sex offenders to live within city limits. If you draw radii of the exclusion zones it leaves almost no part of the city available in which sex offenders can live.
It has created a de facto law that subjects sex offenders–who have already paid their dues in prison or by some other sentence–to exile. I do believe there is an issue of recidivism related to sex offenders (see the movie Little Children with Kate Winslet) but I am not sure that exiling offenders is the right approach. Especially when you consider that some pretty non-threatening behavior can land someone with the offical label of sex offender.
Thomas I agree 100%. I didn’t get into it in my post, but I’ve always been disturbed by the way sex offender lists are used. I’m not against documenting sex offenders, but the way this information is harnessed and used for “witch hunts” by communities is outrageous. Rather than being aware and cautious, community groups drive them out of their cul-de-sacs, or worse intimidate them through violence and threats. (Or flat out kill them – as was the case with Washington state’s Michael Anthony Mull, who murdered two sex offenders.)
I believe some of the variances of what constitues a “sex offender” have been corrected in certain cities, but agreed if I’m cited for urinating behind a dumpster late some night I certainly hope I’m not grouped into the same category as the scum who violate others in the worst way.
There’s many discussions stating sex offenders can’t change and will always be a threat. Hence the logic of community awareness. But at the same time once you’re released from prison you should be allowed to manage your life as a normal citizen and work your way back into society. You should be monitored by your parole officer, not Alice Kravitz peeking through her curtains.
It’s difficult to defend a position of rights for creeps that have molested kids or violated adults. How do you argue against something that could protect children? I don’t think the lists were ever a bad idea, but unfortunately our society is so reactionary that providing the addresses of sex offenders to our fellow gun toting and overly petrified citizens often is a recipe for disaster. Or their garage suspiciously burning down. Perhaps we need to start watching the watchers. For the children’s sake of course.
Interesting discussion. Found your blog after similarly getting a flier taped to my door advertising for neighborhoodredalert.com, being generally suspicious of the source, going to the website, and then carefully reading through their terms of agreements before stopping when I got to the part that authorized them to basically send me commercial spam.
I agree that there are many unresolved issues when it comes to sex offenders, but I’m also of the mind that people can change if they want to and with outside intervention, and if they do, they certainly shouldn’t have their past mistakes (more accurately, mental aberrations) determine their present livelihood.
As a society, I feel we’ve become much too polarized by the mere thought of sex offenders; rather than demonizing them and viewing them as subhuman (however disgusting and unjustifiable their acts may be), we should seek to take a more harmonious approach of studying the condition, helping those who currently have it, and preventing it from developing in individuals in the future. An old over-used image of cutting off a weed and leaving the root comes to mind. It’s quite expected to initially become disgusted and hateful when the thought of a sexual predator enters our minds, yet, we can’t let that determine our approach or overall view.
I think if we created an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding–of the person, not the acts–more would-be sexual offenders, those whose control of their impulses might eventually falter, would be likely to come forward and seek the help and healing they need, rather than understandably feel it comes from a fundamental flaw in their character with no cause or cure, as society seemingly believes.
Thanks for the info and intelligent thoughts on the subject,
Gray
Likewise – and yours too. Yes it’s hard to discuss the rehabilition and recovery of sex crimes without the magnitude of their actions overwhelming and clouding the mind with emotion – especially when discussing children.
But for many post prison sex offenders the current situation of a “free” existence means living in a quasi legal environment hovered over by vigilante nannies who are rarely skilled in social service or law enforcement.
The New York Times Magazine this weekend has a very interesting article about juvenile sex offenders being included in online registries along with adults.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/magazine/22juvenile-t.html
This spamphlet issue is absolutely ridiculous! Apparently, the homeless are being used for distribution, which is kind of interesting in itself. The only benefit has been finding local bloggers that can actually write.
Cheers,