Primary Source: familywatchdog.us/default.asp
Reading through the Criminal Intent and Old Bailey projects got me interested in the documentation of crime. The nature of the crime, verdict in the trial, or even the behavior of the criminal does not matter, anyone who committed a crime between 1674 and 1913 who was tried at the Old Bailey Courthouse is included in the database. Take the case of Thomas Poddy, who in 1710 was tried for “intent to sodomize” another man. Although the evidence against Poddy was not strong enough for conviction, he is included in the database. However, this cannot really harm Poddy’s life, as he dies many years ago and the availability of this information cannot affect his life in a negative way.
This got me thinking about modern criminal registries. Not only do we have newspaper police logs which are usually available online, we have nationwide criminal registries. In comparison to the Old Bailey, many of these do not include details of the crime committed, which can lead to misconceptions about the criminals one may read about online. I searched for the National Sex Offender registry and was directed to familywatchdog.us/default.asp, a “free service to help you locate sex offenders in your neighborhood”. I plugged in UCLA’s zipcode, 90024. There are two ways you can view the results, on a map which shows the addresses of sex offenders and other types of criminals with boxes which are color coded to indicate the type of crime committed. There are also white boxes, indicating schools and playgrounds, and if you click these you can see offenders who live within 1000 feet of this location and offenders within half a mile. You can also view the results as a list, which gives the name and current address of the offender, with those who are closest to your designated location at the top. There are 8 offenders and 16 non-mappable offenders, which means there is no full address available for the offender, or the map does not recognize the address. Clicking on the list I noticed there are 2 offenders living in 90024, and one who actually has “UCLA” included in his address. H0wever, the type of crime or date of crime is not available for these offenders, anyone who committed a sex crime after 1997 is included in the database, which can lead to unnecessary panic if you see that a sex offender is registered in your area.
In comparison, I searched for my home zip code, 03458, corresponding to my home town in New Hampshire. There are six sex offenders in my neighborhood, and one of them is actually my neighbor! Although of course there are more sex offenders living in Los Angeles, they are simply random names in a sea of thousands of apartment buildings and houses. Seeing the names of people you know in the sex offender registry is extremely frightening. Although my neighbor’s crime could have occurred long ago and might well not have anything to do with pedophelia or violent assault, it does make me slightly apprehensive about this man. Although I should let his personality speak for itself, seeing him on a sex offender registry changes my opinion about him, and I probably won’t be so keen if my parents want to invite him over for dinner this Thanksgiving.