We are getting a little antsy. As much as we love our little house, we never thought we would be here for more than five years. It’s coming up on that this summer, and for various other reasons we have decided to become active house hunters, housing market be damned. (Of course I am always playing amateur realtor, but that is a post for another day.)
So the other night I was talking on the phone to our Realtor. She mentioned how a client of hers recently rescinded an offer on a home after viewing online that there are not one, but two registered sex offenders living within blocks of the property. The neighborhood in question was filled with newer homes on the southwest side of town, with a median price tag around $250k. Not exactly skid row.
It’s been awhile since I plugged into the Illinois sex offender information Web site, so I went back there for a little investigation. I found that there are 82 sex offenders living within a five-mile radius of my house, an area that covers a good majority of Champaign-Urbana. 82! Mr. lbotp was astounded.
So now when you go to buy a house (not that many people are these days), look into the information about schools and taxes. But don’t forget to add “consult sex offender registry” to that list.
19 responses so far ↓
Leeanthro // March 7, 2008 at 6:10 am
We were disturbed to find out that there was someone about a block away from us.
They are everywhere. I don’t think you can escape them.
I guess we just have to know where are children are and who they are with. It’s so sad-the loss of freedom and innocence that I think we had as children.
Rayne of Terror // March 7, 2008 at 6:37 am
Yeah, but, the sex offender registry list is overkill IMO because they include people for lesser offenses that you wouldn’t necessarily have a problem with. Just because a person is on the list doesn’t mean they are a predator.
In Decatur, we had a brothel across the street from us which had at any given time multiple sex offenders registered there. There were a lot of reasons we didn’t want to raise Henry in near westside D-town, but the gunshots and the prostitutes were near the top of our list.
Deb // March 7, 2008 at 6:50 am
Unfortunately, those lists also include senior boys dating freshman girls who have sex; mummy and daddy find out and press statutory rape charges. Throw in the number of senior boys who are actually 19 because they were advised to wait a year to mature before starting kindergarten…..
With teen boys of my own and the way I see them portrayed on message boards, I have lost respect for the list. Sadly, many parents of teen boys feel the same
Deb // March 7, 2008 at 7:29 am
OK, I have to post again after actually looking at the site and seeing all the info they give.
I am impressed. It is not just a list of names with no way to know if its the senior.freshman scenario or something far weirder.
I wonder if all sites include details, ages and pictures like IL
corgipants // March 7, 2008 at 9:22 am
You can definitely tell the teen boys from the creeps thanks to all the details. We definitely checked out our area before moving. One key(if you’re worried about that sort of thing) is to find a house near a school or multiple schools since offenders cannot live within a certain radius.
Katherine // March 7, 2008 at 9:35 am
When we were house shopping we narrowed it down to two possibilities. Both were in the same part of town. One, in an older more established neighborhood where people seemed to move in and stay forever and one in a kid friendly neighborhood with a higher frequency of change in neighbors. Shockingly, the kid friendly neighborhood had this “happy bubble” around it. It isn’t a big bubble but it was the largest predator free zone we had seen. As for the other neighborhood we would have been living two houses down from a man who sexually abused a young child. Thank goodness that site exists because had it not been there I would have been won over by the mature trees.
Jenna // March 7, 2008 at 9:54 am
We actually found that the site is not completely accurate. We discovered that one was listed as living across the street from our daughter’s school…of course we checked it out. The info was incorrect and he, for sure, was not living there.
Its better to protect your kids and home…there will always be some kind of danger out there.
Kris // March 7, 2008 at 10:35 am
Problem is, the registry really gives a false sense of security.
The registry includes persons convicted of qualifying criminal offenses only, i.e. only those who are reported, arrested, prosecuted, and convicted of a “qualifying” offense. (Sometimes an offender is charged with a qualifying offense, but pleads to something else that doesn’t require registration.) It doesn’t include all sex offenders.
Definitely don’t base your housing decisions on the registry alone.
Don // March 7, 2008 at 10:58 am
Grain of salt, pretty much.
What is the data on the radius within a predator’s (sic) home in which said predator commits offenses?
…on that “To Catch A…” shows does it not always seem like those guys are driving miles to meet the girl (sic) they met online?
I mean, if you move into 2 Main will you rob the new bank at 4 Main?
Just some thoughts…
lbotp // March 7, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I’d rather know than not know. It’s just another tool at our disposal — that’s all it is, a tool.
Misc // March 7, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Interesting. I checked our neighborhood in far sw Champaign to find 1 guy living in a pretty tony subdivision (that has lots of kids) down the road.
Thanks for the post.
Jason // March 8, 2008 at 8:46 am
Last I checked, there were only 2 in all of Savoy. Plenty of new construction down here in that price range. Somebody’s got to buy them, right?
Milwaukee Brad // March 8, 2008 at 11:33 am
I know one of the folks in Savoy and you would never think that guy would be a sex offender. He was an acedemic professional at the university. Got caught up in one of those internet sex stings that law enforcement runs. He lived there for 10+ years before he was picked up.
Not sure how I feel about those sting operations… I just don’t think there are that many teenagers surfing the internet for 40 year old friends.
So don’t think you are safe just because you live in a nice neighborhood and have no sex offenders in your neighborhood.
By the way, the Wisconsin site is just as good as the Illinois site, if not better as it color codes the offenders on the map by offense type.
Katherine // March 8, 2008 at 4:24 pm
We certainly didn’t just rely on the website to make our decision. It clued us into the predator. When we asked our Realtor about it she said it was true and that she had sold it to him. To that I replied “Could ya try and encourage a “special neighborhood” so as not to give C-U parents a heart attack?”
A joke. I know we can’t corral people we don’t like and keep them out of where we live.
veganlinda // March 9, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Also keep in mind that just as there are people on death row (especially in Illinois it seems) who are later found innocent that people are not always guilty of things they are convicted of. We watched Gone, Baby, Gone tonight which totally freaks me out about sexual offenders, but at the same time I have to keep it in perspective.
peanut's mom // March 10, 2008 at 8:03 pm
You can’t let the sex offender list perpetuate a vicious cycle of stranger danger and the harm that it causes our kids. When we were kids we did not have access to this type of information, and we are all fine! Some people may be wrongly accused, or on there because they had sex as a minor, or may have done something awful, but have paid their debt to society and deserve a chance at redemption that can only come through anonymity. It is important to consider these things carefully, not judge too quickly or instill too much fear in others and children. I refuse to check that thing, I will not give in to the fear mongering. There are more good things in the world than bad, and it is so important to let kids get outside and experience life!
Katherine // March 10, 2008 at 8:35 pm
peanut’s mom,
I appreciate your viewpoint and agree that children are given difficult information and sometimes too much of it. However, the site clearly indicates the offenses and the age of the perpetrator and that of the victim at the time of the crime. Given the dismal rate of reform amongst sex offenders (the real ones) we can’t just ignore the resources we’ve been given. Sexual abuse is rarely reported and I think there is much more of it going on than we will ever know. As someone who had a number of childhood friends that were sexually abused (by family members and friends of the family) I have seen the wreckage it leaves behind. While I treasure these people as strong, brave, amazing individuals I will do everything in my power to keep my daughter from experiencing that. I do agree that kids need to be allowed the freedom of childhood but as far as I’m concerned better to be a pushy mom than let someone mess with my kid.
peanuts mom // March 12, 2008 at 1:24 pm
As you said, abuse normally comes from friends of the family or family members themselves…not information you are likely to find on a website. The strangers in the neighborhood tend to not be what we need to be most worried about. I understand wanting to protect your daughter, and I hope that this is something she never experiences, best bet is to properly prepare her about having autonomy over her body and how to deal with dating when she is ready. Let’s not perpetuate a fear of strangers, that is too detrimental for our society. You can choose to live in fear, or you can be reasonable. I stand by what I wrote.
stalker in our midst « little blog on the prairie // March 25, 2008 at 10:40 am
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