It’s all about the perverts

Actually, it’s all about the fear of perverts, or more precisely, making money off the fear of perverts.

The west side of Fort Collins from north of Vine to south of Drake — and maybe other neighborhoods — was blanketed with door-to-door notices like this one found taped to my front door early yesterday morning.

I happen to live in a neighborhood so new it doesn’t show up on Google maps yet. The last person to move in to our half-finished cul-de-sac is a lovely middle-aged lady. So, if grammatically challenged folks who write in screaming capital letters know something I don’t, well …  I immediately logged on.

Without entering my e-mail, I could deduce that Neighborhood Red Alert is a Colorado Springs-based organization dedicated to the noble purpose of alerting people if a sex offender moves into the neighborhood. Maybe.

While the Contact Us page lists an address and phone number, the number is unlisted and several lookup services tell me that there are no listings for a business of that name within 50 miles of Colorado Springs. The address just happens to match that of Mail Boxes Etc.

So far, not so good. On to the About Us page, filled with scary but dated statistics about children molested by “sexual predators.” And the sad fact that even though these evildoers are now required to register their whereabouts with the authorities, “because of budgetary constraints,” it is “almost impossible for the vital information to be passed out to each parent in every community.”

I’m sure you’re already there ahead of me, but in the interests of full reporting, I entered my editor’s e-mail address and my zip code and logged on. Yep, for a mere $5 registration fee and $2.95 a month, the Red Alert Team will send “the vital information” directly to my in-box whenever I need to batten down the hatches. School principals and daycare operators can get the alerts free of charge — since they probably know the Larimer County Sheriff’s Web site offers much better information for free.

Along with a full explanation of how folks get on the registry in the first place, the sheriff’s Website also offers this handy disclaimer: “Persons should not rely solely on the sex offender registry as a safeguard against perpetrators of sexual assault in their communities. The crime for which a person is convicted may not accurately reflect the level of risk.”

That means that the registry includes everybody, from teenage weenie-waggers to violent offenders, who have served their sentence and are back on the street. The U.S. Department of Justice, which gets its information from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, distributes details — free of charge — on a Web site that allows a wonderful array of sorting. It says America’s No. 1 City is home to 159 registered sex offenders, exactly two of whom are classified as sexual violent predators — most SVPs stay behind bars. Fort Collins police held a community meeting to inform the neighborhood, as required by law and free of charge, when the latest registered SVP moved to town.

Interestingly enough, these two were not in any way flagged by the Red Alert Team as any different from the rest of their roster. Among the 43 offenders shown in my zip code — DOJ says there are currently 17 — the “offenses” range from indecent exposure to incest with a minor to child fondling to the even vaguer “sex offense.” I’m suspecting these are not necessarily the charges for which they were adjudicated — or that an address of “123 Transient” actually exists.

One address does exist, though – 2555 Midpoint Drive. It’s the Larimer County Detention Center, where another Web site, familywatchdog.com, locates two of their “mappable” offenders. (At least the sheriff identifies it as the jail, where over a dirty dozen are residing.) For just $24 a year, you can have the Family Watchdogs monitor up to 3 addresses, sending you e-mail when one of the bad guys comes into the vicinity, either at work or at home. How could you not spend just $8 a year – less than a nickel a day, Mom and Dad — to protect your offspring at home, school and church?

But does this sort of cyberstalking, whether you pay for it or not, actually create peace of mind or paranoia? Even the Red Alert statistics, which seem to be cribbed from Family Watchdog, say, “Most sex offenders (80-95%) assault children they know.”

And here’s the rub: “most sex offenders” is not the same thing as “child molesters” or “pedophiles.” The guy who is on the list as the result of bad behavior with his ex- is not the guy who is going to leap out of the bushes and snatch your kid — especially if he doesn’t know you or your kid.

So, once you have the vital information, what do you do with it? Family Watchdog advises against confrontation. “Harassing anyone on the offender registry is a misdemeanor and can be punished by both a fine and jail time. The purpose of this service is to allow you to identify sexual predators that you may come in contact with, not as a tool to hunt them down and run them out.”

If you’re still with me, here’s the punchline: By agreeing to the terms and conditions of using the Neighborhood Red Alert site, you give affirmative consent to receive “commercial electronic mail” from not only the Red Alert Team, but its “designees, parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, officers and employees affiliate.” Dude, you have just opted in to be spammed by whomever the Red Alert Team sells your e-mail to.

So who might be “affiliates” of the Red Alerters? We may never know — the Web site is a private registration through Domains By Proxy, whose motto is: “Your identity is nobody’s business but ours.”

It’s really all about irony, isn’t it?

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