Family members should familiarize themselves with photos of nearby sex offenders regularly

Gwinnett Today
Special Report

BUFORD - Over the last week, if we haven't asked the question aloud, we've certainly asked it silently to ourselves - "How could they not know a registered sex offender was living so close to their home?"

Especially when the family had a computer at their home that was Internet active.

But really, how many of us have checked our own sex offenders list to protect our family - not just to look for people we may know.

And of those of us that have checked our state and/or county registry - how many re-check it on a regular basis?

In short, the stats are in and the answer is...very, very few. But the good news, a lot more people are checking it now.

Is it enough to pull it up and check our immediate area or should the ones in our neighborhood be printed and circulated throughout the household?

Would this have prevented what happened to Jessica Lunsford?

We still don't know how the perpetrator gained access to the house but if the family was aware of John Couey's existence - they would have had the opportunity to better secure their home.

And the moment she went missing - they would have known where to run to look first.

People may start living safer because of Jessica's tragedy and laws don't have to be passed to make it so.

What may have seemed obsessively precautious or even paranoid two weeks ago now just seems to make common sense.

The climate has changed over the last couple of weeks and it's time we consider taking the following steps:

Print color pictures of those on your local sex offender registry and keep them posted on your kitchen cork board.

Print an extra or two to give to households you know that are not Internet active.

Drive over to the addresses close to yours and become familiar with that area - in case someone does go missing.

Discuss all of this openly with your family. It's not tabu - it's a matter of safety.

This will breed awareness and will help people to speak up without embarrassment.

Do this every month or two as these predators relocate frequently for obvious reasons. We are talking about your loved ones.

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Reader Response:

With the recent cases of convicted Sex Offenders kidnapping and killing children, I thought I’d check out the Georgia GBI site (http://www.state.ga.us/gbi/disclaim.html to see if we had any Sex Offenders and/or Child Molesters living nearby
http://www.state.ga.us/gbi/sorsch.cgi?city=&zip=&county=GWINNETT&names=&submit=Search

I was a little shocked to learn we have 210 registered Sex Offenders amongst us scattered throughout Gwinnett County (possibly your neighbor).

Since many of us don’t take the time to go online (or even know it’s available) to see who they are, what they’ve done, and what they look like, it would be a great public service to publish these online or in the print edition.

It would be a great feature or maybe even an exposé, showing: who they are, what they’ve done, where they live, and what they look like.

I would recommend and entire section dedicated to this so the public can keep an edition handy to take along the next time we go to the store.

This would not only be the biggest seller of the year (print), or drive a lot of traffic (website), but it would be a great public service which is as we know is your expertise & duty.

The expert talking heads among most of the national media seem to think identifying them (convicted Sex Offenders) is the primary deterrent.

If it saves one victim, it would be well worth it.

If it happens to go print I’ll be sure to pick up several copies.

Best regards,
C. Stevens

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