Familywatchdog site tracks sex offenders
Kanupriya Vashisht
Special for The Republic
Jan. 18, 2006 12:00 AM
Chandler resident Ruvi Wijesuriya and his 3-year-old daughter, Rekha, would sometimes stand and chat with their neighbor while the man's two Weimaraners socialized with their greyhound. Then Wijesuriya discovered his neighbor was a registered sex offender. The information came from http://www.familywatchdog.us,/ a Web site that allows anyone to identify registered sex offenders that live, work or attend school within a 5-mile radius of any address. The free site offers information on 38 states, including Arizona, and includes street maps and aerial photographs. Square icons identify homes or workplaces of sex offenders, and clicking on them reveals the offender's picture, name, address, employer and convictions.
Wijesuriya says the service is useful."The safety of our kids supersedes their (sex offenders) right to privacy, especially since repeat rates are so high," he said. Familywatchdog founder Steve Roddel and his business partner, Ted Crawford, became concerned with online sex offender registries after a rash of high-profile cases last spring when children were slain by registered sex offenders. The idea took shape after Roddel, a father of three, learned that two sex offenders lived near his home, and he could not find information on the Indiana Sex and Violent Offender registry because a street name was misspelled in the directory.State and national registries proved to be dated and tedious to use, Crawford said."We wondered what we could do to make this information more easily available for moms and dads?" They finally decided to build something that was easier to use and would put information in terms people could understand.A prototype of the Web site was launched last summer. After mentions on national TV by Oprah Winfrey, John Walsh, 20-20 and NBC Nightly News, the daily hits have now touched 1 million. "I don't have any problem with Web sites like these that try to share information about sex offenders. As long as they are educational and pro-active, I think it is a good thing," said Val Biebrich, supervisor of the sex-offender compliance team at the Arizona Department of Public Safety.Although Biebrich agrees that offenders must be treated cautiously, he said they must not be harassed because they have served their terms and are currently not wanted by police. Arizona has about 11,000 registered sex offenders. The Arizona Department of Public Safety has its own Web site - az.gov/webapp/offender - that lists registered sex offenders, but only levels 2 and 3. "My very brief overview of the site is that, while possibly generating unnecessary fear, it is absolutely the Web site creators' right to make this public information available," said Dawn Wyland, interim director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona."No legislator will take on the issue out of fear that the media . . . will label him or her as pro-offender," Wyland said.Juan Rosales recently received notification from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office about an offender who moved into his Tempe neighborhood. He said he found the Web site aggressively worded."It might make some offenders hostile," Rosales said.Crawford said the site has had negative and positive response from sex offenders."Some actually thanked us because it shines a light on them and forces them to live up to a standard," Crawford said. Another similar tracking site is mapsexoffenders.com. "The important thing is to get information about the neighborhood. If you are walking your kid to the front door of a sex offender it's like an advertisement - here's my kid," said Mark Olsen, founder of mapsexoffenders.com.
Kanupriya Vashisht
Special for The Republic
Jan. 18, 2006 12:00 AM
Chandler resident Ruvi Wijesuriya and his 3-year-old daughter, Rekha, would sometimes stand and chat with their neighbor while the man's two Weimaraners socialized with their greyhound. Then Wijesuriya discovered his neighbor was a registered sex offender. The information came from http://www.familywatchdog.us,/ a Web site that allows anyone to identify registered sex offenders that live, work or attend school within a 5-mile radius of any address. The free site offers information on 38 states, including Arizona, and includes street maps and aerial photographs. Square icons identify homes or workplaces of sex offenders, and clicking on them reveals the offender's picture, name, address, employer and convictions.
Wijesuriya says the service is useful."The safety of our kids supersedes their (sex offenders) right to privacy, especially since repeat rates are so high," he said. Familywatchdog founder Steve Roddel and his business partner, Ted Crawford, became concerned with online sex offender registries after a rash of high-profile cases last spring when children were slain by registered sex offenders. The idea took shape after Roddel, a father of three, learned that two sex offenders lived near his home, and he could not find information on the Indiana Sex and Violent Offender registry because a street name was misspelled in the directory.State and national registries proved to be dated and tedious to use, Crawford said."We wondered what we could do to make this information more easily available for moms and dads?" They finally decided to build something that was easier to use and would put information in terms people could understand.A prototype of the Web site was launched last summer. After mentions on national TV by Oprah Winfrey, John Walsh, 20-20 and NBC Nightly News, the daily hits have now touched 1 million. "I don't have any problem with Web sites like these that try to share information about sex offenders. As long as they are educational and pro-active, I think it is a good thing," said Val Biebrich, supervisor of the sex-offender compliance team at the Arizona Department of Public Safety.Although Biebrich agrees that offenders must be treated cautiously, he said they must not be harassed because they have served their terms and are currently not wanted by police. Arizona has about 11,000 registered sex offenders. The Arizona Department of Public Safety has its own Web site - az.gov/webapp/offender - that lists registered sex offenders, but only levels 2 and 3. "My very brief overview of the site is that, while possibly generating unnecessary fear, it is absolutely the Web site creators' right to make this public information available," said Dawn Wyland, interim director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arizona."No legislator will take on the issue out of fear that the media . . . will label him or her as pro-offender," Wyland said.Juan Rosales recently received notification from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office about an offender who moved into his Tempe neighborhood. He said he found the Web site aggressively worded."It might make some offenders hostile," Rosales said.Crawford said the site has had negative and positive response from sex offenders."Some actually thanked us because it shines a light on them and forces them to live up to a standard," Crawford said. Another similar tracking site is mapsexoffenders.com. "The important thing is to get information about the neighborhood. If you are walking your kid to the front door of a sex offender it's like an advertisement - here's my kid," said Mark Olsen, founder of mapsexoffenders.com.
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