Would you want to know if one of these people lived on your street *content warning - SO*

[usernamechanged1]

Was careful with the title so as not to cause any unwanted distress.

I watched Stacey Dooley’s documentary where she went to Florida and they literally signpost “The occupant of (address) is a convicted sex offender” at the edge of the neighbourhood. They also have an online database where you can put someone’s name in and see if they have convictions of that nature. It’ll tell you what they’ve done and when.

I know there are a few illegal websites in the UK which do the same, but nothing published by the police or government, as in the US.

Would you like to see something like this available?

Would you want to know if a convicted sex offender or paedophile lived on your street?

I think SO should not be allowed to own a smart phone or use the internet, or interact with any other SO, and have to agree to a tracking device.

I don’t know if naming and addresses works, but at the same time I do think you should be able to look people up - so you don’t get into a relationship with a SO for example.

But I also think we need to have more awareness and education of how to report, and encouraged to report even our suspicions. There are so many threads on here with half saying ‘mind your own business unless you are 100% certain’. That won’t keep kids safe. There should be really easy ways to do this online.

I also think we should have zero tolerance of physical hitting or attacks. I want a society where no one should be attacked either physically or sexually.

I live where this is available. It’s a valuable resource when buying a home etc. We almost offered on a house a few years ago until I went on the gov website and discovered that a violent sex offender (crimes against children) lived across the street. It’s also very clear who is on there for statutory rape or public indecency (ie much more in the way of gray areas) or violently abusing a child.

@ToastMarmalade there are very simple ways to report safeguarding and welfare concerns. Even anonymously. If you don't know this already, maybe more education is needed but I think it is quite widely known. A simple Internet search would take 2 minutes to find out how and to whom.
And for those offenders who are being closely monitored, I think police and/pr agencies are obliged to tell anyone who begins a relationship with an SO, but I'm not sure if that's just if this gives the offender access to children, but I'm willing to stand corrected on that one.

@Bootlass there are licence conditions relating to disclosure for those released from prison under supervision. There would also be an expectation of disclosure for those serving community sentences which would be undertaken by the authorities. It doesn’t matter if there are children involved or not.

@Bootlass I was thinking more that people don’t know the red flags, and even when they see them or suspect, the social pressure is to ‘not be a nosey busy body’ unless they had some kind of irrefutable proof. So through the media / school / whichever and even a dedicated ‘let people know’ website that encouraged us all to be vigilante in the right way and report appropriately.

As I said, there are many mumsnet threads where someone suspects SO or child neglect etc, and it’s surprising how many posters will still say ‘you can’t you are just a busy body’.

@ToastMarmalade sadly, many people do see the red flags but choose to ignore them for a variety of reasons. There are frequent examples of this on Mumsnet. Just recently there was a poster whose son was receiving indecent material from one of his friends, but she point blank refused to report it as she didn’t want her own son to get in trouble.

Gosh that’s worrying. I think we should stop covering up within families, most abuse occurs in families. I have a child with SN and I do find my Exes family think I’m way too ‘cautious’ about safeguarding, but I don’t care, my son’s safety comes first. So if I’m not comfortable about DS being unsupervised with so and so, well tough!

I wish known SOs were housed alongside people who said things like 'I'm not bothered by them' or 'paedophiles deserve a second chance'. It would be interesting to see how having such a neighbour impacted on their lives.

Why the heck would we want to import any American 'justice' lunacy?
Vigilantism is the obvious outcome and that is just downright uncivilised. And these offenders clearly weren't deterred by the risk of having all this (the signs etc) happening, so it doesn't work. Hell, even the possibility of execution doesn't deter killers there or anywhere.

Honestly I don't really care who lives on my street. My child didn't go anywhere alone when he was young, and at 15 now he's big enough to defend himself against creeps.

I live in a council flat so property selling and value isn't a concern for me.

I think it would give false sense of security in that loads of sex offenders are never caught and convicted but are still a risk.
Also, it might drive convicted sex offenders underground on release so they evade monitoring by their probation or the police and effectively go missing. This makes them a greater risk.
And of course the small minority or wrongful convictions or mistaken identities and vigil anti groups.

Innocent people have died and been targeted, pedophilles move and data bases and gossip does not catch up , also there is a whole spectrum of offences and spectrum of risk to your children , for example a 15 year old posting sexy pic of herself has just gotten into trouble at my school -just having photos of herself in skimpy underwear on her phone makes her a sex offender ( and victim at the same time ) as she has images of underage person and is distributing. Big difference between her and Fred west

I don't care about the risk to sex offenders...except, in the US, kids can be on the register for poor decisions. So a 14 year old could ruin their life forever due to a lack of understanding. They could grow into an adult who never commits another offence but their 14yo decision follows them forever.
Also...what about innocent people linked to the SO. Children, partners, parents, siblings etc. Do they deserve to have their lives ruined?

@Greenshakethanks for the clarification. I wasn't too sure on that point. My own knowledge on something like that was limited to what happens (or rather what should happen) after a person is released followed DV sentence

@ToastMarmalade if someone truly suspected abuse, you would like to think they'd use they're own intelligence and commonsense and report regardless of whether random strangers on MN tried to goad persuade them not to, implying they were an interfering busybody. But hey, who knows how people think and what their priorities are.

@pimplebum I'm a little confused - did the 15 year old post or privately share her photo or she got into trouble for just having it on her phone? I'd sharing, she is then sharing sexualised images of an underage child. If it was just on her own phone, how did the school or anyone else find out?

Having lived within 100 metres of 2 sex offenders, yes, I can say it honestly didn’t bother me at all. I would far rather live next door to a sex offender than a domestic violence perpetrator.

@Bootlass, re your question about the 15 yr old and the images, I would guess that the offence she could technically get in trouble for would be MAKING indecent images - although I would be very surprised if that ever went anywhere.

Ignorance is bliss. I think most people vastly underestimate the number of sex offenders out there as well as abusers, killers, violent criminals, etc. While I suppose I would want to know in theory so I could keep my children safe, in reality the scale of it would probably terrify me into never leaving my house.

Ignorance is bliss. I think most people vastly underestimate the number of sex offenders out there as well as abusers, killers, violent criminals, etc.

I think so.

For paedos at least, considering what we know about the prevalence in the general population, the people who think there's one on every street corner aren't that far off the truth. One on every few streets, anyway.

10 or so years ago they didn't have to tell the person who they are in a relationship with. That's just changed recently. And it all depends on what they've done. Some only get 10 years on the register with nothing added on and are allowed to be around children as long as someone who knows is present and is obviously 18 or older. But once the 10 years is up they can be present around children on their own. Again depends what they've done. Some are not allowed access to computers etc. You can find out through the police if they don't tell you.

The prevalence of them is actually horrifying. I think it’s worse for me now that I have a child. The thought of anyone saying hello to them or chatting to them (as people do when you’re in shops and so on) with ill intentions makes me feel sick to my stomach.

You need to be aware of basic safeguarding measures, but you shouldn’t live your life in a constant state of fear about this. There is risk inherent in nearly everything.

It’s not so much a fear as an anger that these people hide in plain sight and often act so nice/approachable/friendly when their genuine self is the complete opposite.

I don’t know how people process finding out their relation or good friend is one. It must be a terrible shock.

I think it’s more the sneaky, lying, underhand behaviour than the actual threat of harm that gets to me. My child is still a baby, so the true risk of harm right now is minimal to him.

You sound so accepting of it. They should be driven out and left to live on the streets. Real consequences

I'm going to get flamed for this but not all. Most but not all are bad people. There are some out there that have been lied to and then they get their lives ruined. Not all girls are innocent.

That's never going to happen in a civilised society though. There's no choice but to accept it.