Slashdot Mirror
iPhone App Tracks Sex Offenders
The Narrative Fallacy writes "All 50 states in the US require the 50,000 people convicted of sexual offenses to sign a register so that their whereabouts can be tracked and monitored. The Telegraph reports that now users of the iPhone Offender Locator application can search for sex offenders living nearby a friend or colleague whose address is stored in their Apple iPhone address book, or they can type in a street address to generate a list of convicted sex offenders in the local area. 'Offender Locator gives everyone the ability to find out if registered sex offenders live in their area,' says the application developer, ThinAir Wireless, on its iTunes page. 'Knowledge equals safety. They know where you and your family are...now it's time to turn the tables so that you know where they live and can make better decisions about where to allow your kids to play.' Offender Locator uses the iPhone's built-in GPS to pinpoint the user's location, and then provide a map listing sex offenders in the local area. Tapping on one of the 'pins' dropped on to the map brings up a photograph of the offender, as well as their address, date of birth and list of convictions."
That's great for the very stereotypical creepy, mustachioed child molester, but ever-increasingly the phrase, "sex offender" has nothing to do with children at all. That same title now applies to people convicted of statutory rape, even if they were 17 & 18 at the time. It applies to people who streak, people who are caught skinny-dipping, people who are caught having sex in public (including in their car), and even people who happened to urinate behind a tree in some places. Yet they have the same social stigma & registration entries in the database as people who raped children.
So yeah, it might help protect your children, or it might just show you the house of a guy who really needed to take a leak, and happened to get caught. But hey, feel free to use it and get extremely paranoid at the rapidly growing number of people it shows...
How many more years until realtors no longer sell houses in certain areas to sex offenders? Or even more scary, how long until we only let them live in certain areas? Maybe even put up a fence around the area? Post guards at the gates?
Ya, getting a little dramatic, but this BS where any soccer mom can pick up her iPhone and gawk with her friends at all the "criminals" in their neighborhood.. It's getting sickening..
If these people are still dangerous, keep them locked up. If they are no longer dangerous, don't make public lists that they have to register on.
Either you're guilty and you pay your debt, or you're paid your debt and are no longer guilty.
Personally, if I had a daughter, I'd teach her to be aware of her surroundings and be wary of strangers, just like I was taught. List or no list, if a predator is out there, he's going to hunt. Some list that further punishes those that have paid their debt won't save my child, or yours.
I care more about knowing where known pickpockets are, in relation to my current whereabouts.
Not whether someone got caught taking a piss behind a bush, or who had sex with someone two years younger than them when they were a teenager.
When you overextend a label such as 'sex offender' (adding noise to signal), the label becomes meaningless, and those that actually deserve that label are less noticeable in the noise.
But not before dumb vigilantes attack a few paediatricians ...
What is with the excessive demonization of sex offenders today? What makes this class of crime the worst by such a large margin that we need a whole separate form of punishment? Why not a murderer registry? Certainly murder is a more serious crime, right?
Furthermore, if the government can ascertain fully enough that these people are very dangerous and likely to commit their same crimes again, WTF are they doing free? Shouldn't they be in prison or a mental hospital if that is the case?
BTW to the other posters -- only Class 2 and 3 sex offenders show up on the registry -- these are usually the nasty, malicious ones. The bush-pissers and streakers end up as Class 1. Still extremely odious, but not quite as bad, and their names are not made pubic, errr... public.
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Oh really? The US DoJ's Inspector General had some withering criticism of the utility of the information sources this guy is relying on.
This sounds like an excellent way for people with similar interests to hook up with each other. What could possibly go wrong?
We've tried tracking them with satellite imagery but that only shows they aren't on the roof of their house.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Right... when he's got his hands around my neck telling me how easy it would be to break my neck, and how he'd have to kill me and my mother to "protect himself" if I ever told her or anyone else. Obviously you don't know how this works, so at least I am fairly sure you're not a child molester yourself. But you cannot imagine how sick and tired I am of this "blame the victim" of whatever crime. I was molested because my father is a sick slimeball, not because somehow I "allowed it" or "asked for it"; I have no problems with my own involvement or lack thereof in the matter.
I am currently writing an app for sex offenders to find victims....
As Tarzan of the Apes said to the beautiful young Countess de Coude, "One does not judge the gazelle by the lions that attack it." That book, with that line, read when I was about 14, literally saved my life. I wish all victims of abuse of all kinds could realize this. It's NOT YOUR FAULT!!!