Who Are The Sex Criminals In Your Neighborhood?

Well, I thought I was done blogging for today, but something Denita at Who Tends The Fires wrote jarred my keyboard back into action.

Apparently, there are sex offenders in her town. Imagine that!

As a non-parent, I'll admit that I'm not keyed into the notion that creepy folks are lurking in the underbrush waiting to snatch up my child and teach him/her to play Hide The Salami. In fact, as a fairly sizable male with a fairly sizable gun collection, I have to admit that sexual predators rate really really low on my personal worry list. The only realistic chance I have of being sexually molested in my lifetime is if I somehow get sentenced to a Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison.

So, I'm probably guilty of a bit of insensitivity, here. The fact of the matter is that rapes and molestation happen a lot, perhaps more than most of us can imagine. Here's a scary little map for your viewing pleasure:



That's my neighborhood. The star in the center marked with "Harris" (for Harris County) isn't my house, it's the house I lived in back in 9th grade. I've since lived in 2 other houses in a 500 yard radius of that star, though, and still live there today. Each of those little red dots indicates the residence of a registered sexual offender, be it for rape, attempted rape, kiddy-diddling, solicitation, maybe even giving a vice officer too much of a lap dance.

That's a LOT of dots. Now, consider that most offenders will (on average) commit the same or similar crime anywhere from 3-10 times before they are apprehended and forced to register after their conviction. Consider that many rapes and molestations go unreported. I'd say you could easily triple the amount of dots on the map and not be too far from the truth.

So, Denita's got a right to be worried. She's also armed, and ready to blow the shit out of anyone even looking squirrelly at her kid, so I'd just recommend steering clear of Tinyville, TX!

OK, on a related note I just can't ignore, let me call your attention back to the map...



Notice the big black line about 1/3 of the way from the bottom? That's Interstate 10. Now, I'll freely admit to a lifetime of living on the wrong side of the tracks. OK, so they pulled up the Katy railroad line that ran along I-10 a decade ago, but the fact remains that the north side is distinctly seedier than the south side. Drop south of I-10, and suddenly home values shoot up by 50-75 thousand bucks, you see much fewer apartment complexes, and homeowner associations actually enforce their deed restrictions.

Now, notice the relatively few amount of red dots. Whassup wit' dat?

I'm tempted to say that it shows that the rich folk, bearing wisdom gained from proper rearing, good education, and excellent jobs that give them money to pay for hookers have less incidents of sex crimes as a result.

The cold hard truth, though, is that they're just more likely to be able to afford good lawyers.

If you're a Texas resident, go here and take a look at your neighborhood. That ain't Mr. Rogers living down the street, I reckon!