Lorne Gold, a family lawyer in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan alerted our Michigan Family Law Section's Listserv today to a valuable service available to anyone with Internet access.
The website for Family Watchdog published these statistics on its website:
3% of all sexual assaults against children are committed by someone whom the victim knew.
The typical sexual predator will assault 30 - 60 times before being caught.
The re-arrest rate for convicted child molesters is 52%.
We aim to reduce these percentages by ensuring that all sexual predators are known.
The Family Watchdog website allows you to put in 3 addresses -- yours and/or those of your family members or friends. The service is free and is designed to locate registered sex offenders in your area. When you enter an address, you'll see a map. You can click on the squares that appear, and see photos (where available), addresses, and convictions.
Family Watchdog has a simple notification service. You may specify up to three addresses (not zip codes) that you want to watch and the distance around those addresses. The website does the rest. Data is updated daily from multiple public data sources. As soon as a convicted sex offender registers an address in your area, you will be alerted.
To use Family Watchdog, click here.
Parentage issues have
long been of special interest to Jeanne Hannah. To contact Jeanne Hannah with
your questions or to view her Family Law website, click here.