CBS 2 Investigates: New Sex Offender Database
Oct 9, 2006 5:02 pm US/Eastern

Color-Coded Online Site Let's You See Who Lives Where

Scott WeinbergerReporting
(CBS) NEW YORK With a click of the mouse, Candice Lombardi learned just how many sex offenders were living or working in her neighborhood."Nine hundred seventy offenders is a lot higher than I would have thought," Lombardi said."It gives you the persons picture, that's really scary, Second Avenue, that's where I live."Lombardi is the mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. She's looking at a brand new Web site -- www.familywatchdog.us. Here's how it works: just plug in your address and the site provides a map of your area. Color coded boxes show the address where registered sex offenders live or work and even details of their offenses. "This is a good piece of information. It's great to know that someone created a place where you can go and actually see who's in your neighborhood," said Lombardi.The closest two offenders to her home are a man who lives a few blocks south, convicted of sexually assaulting a 27-year-old woman, and another living nearby who's been convicted of attempted sodomy of a 13-year-old boy. Several months ago, a series of CBS 2 investigations revealed that 59 registered sex offenders were living in a cluster of boarding homes in one small Suffolk County neighborhood in Coram. After our stories were broadcast, state legislation was introduced to prevent this type of sex offender saturation in a single neighborhood. There is no cost to access the information on the Family Watchdog Web site, which draws all of it's information from sex offender registries in each state and combines that information with mapping software.
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