This post is probably not going to be what you think. I just read an article in REALTOR® Magazine, a monthly publication of the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), about the growing number of Web sites and mobile applications that make it easy to learn how many registered sex offenders live in a given neighborhood. That's a good thing, right? Perhaps not. The article points out that, despite the fact that in most areas violent crime rates are lower now than they've been since the 1970s, media saturation of high-profile cases has contributed to an erroneous sense that society has run amok. And although the number of people registered as sex offenders has been exploding, perhaps creating an irrational "stranger danger" mentality, in reality, 90% of crimes against children are committed by a family member or someone they know. Further, an assessment of registered sex offenders in Georgia found that less than 1% were "predators," defined as people who are driven by compulsion to commit sex crimes.

So why this disconnect in the numbers? Apparently, there is a nationwide trend to lower the bar as to what constitutes a sex offender. According to Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry (Jossy-Bass, 2009), "A person can wind up on the registry for urinating in public, or for visiting a prostitute. Or for streaking; in 32 states that stupid prank can land a fool on the list." She goes on to point out that the most problematic group of "sex offenders" is teens who have consensual sex with an underage partner and end up getting caught, which can earn them the "sex offender" label.

What is needed, Skenazy says, is not the expansion of registries we're seeing, but smaller, more meaningful registries. That and a rational approach to the issue by home buyers. While NAR has no formal policy about the use of sex offender registries as part of a home search, it holds that enforcement agencies are the best source of information on sex offenders. Most state and many local enforcement agencies provide sex offender information on the Web and elsewhere. These should be your primary resources for this kind of information.

Bob Dohn
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
140-A S. Roselle Rd., Schaumburg, IL 60193
Direct phone: 847-301-3126
Web: www.BobDohn.com