Review: Offender Locator

Overview

The application promises to find sex offenders in your vicinity, near your contact, or your address of choice. The app also draws a map of all the offenders located in the area that you have picked out.

Features

• You have the choice to find the sexual offender in your current location, at your contact's address, or at any given street address.
• The map feature shows a visual demonstration of where the offenders are around you.
• You get a list of the offenders offenses along with a picture, a brief description, and an address.

The Breakdown

The Good

If I were a parent I would want to know if my child is in danger. I feel as if there are too many perverts in this world making the lives of parents hard, and a few laws that are helping them. I would want to know where my child should not venture. Truth be told even without being a parent I am curious to know where these so called sex offenders live in my neighborhood. Maybe it is the media and its portrayal of humanity with decaying morality, or maybe its my paranoia but I am glad there is a list I can look at to find a safe haven in this uncertain world we inhabit.

The Bad

There is the moral dilemma. A lot of the bad reviews on Itunes seem to generate from two categories. Those who feel as if they have paid their debt to society and those who feel like the lists don't show all the offenders. To that I say: well there are always cases where you will find some innocent person being trapped by the unfortunate laws of our age, but how is the average joe supposed to judge these things if the court fails. The fact that the lists are not complete is somewhat concerning but in retrospect this is only an Iphone app, I am sure you can do more research on your own. A newer version of the app that lists every single offender and perhaps categories of crime might be something to look forward to. That way you can filter out the criminals that should be given a second chance or not based on your own biases that you canperhaps feed into the system. Another issue is that the paid app does not work for California, though the lite version does list California. The developers must have their reasons perhaps a legal issue. Though that posts an issue for California residents, it should not be enough to effect your download of this app. To California residents: Don't buy the app until the issue is fixed.

The Ugly

The app for the most part provides the simple truth that you sought. But did you want to go through those pictures of the sexual offenders. Did you want to scare yourself into paranoia. Even if the app functioned perfectly it is the images of the offenders that leave a bad feeling in your gut.

The Verdict

I was interested in getting the app and $.99 for peace of mind is nothing at all, because most people wouldn't take the time to research the data even if it is available for free. On the other hand there is a moral dilemma that varies on case to case. The app erases any humanity from the process. You will probably not read the exact crimes, and will judge all of them on equal basis. How is a criminal supposed to redeem himself (but maybe they shouldn't have committed such hideous crimes). This app raises a lot of moral dilemmas for me, but I must say that for what it offers I would buy it, even if it does not list all the offenders as most of the complaints seem to say. I would still want to be aware of my surroundings. Additional info: The reason the paid version of the app doesn't have California in it, is because California has made a law stating that the megan's law information can not be sold or resold, it must remain freely available (I believe per the request of Megan's family) [gallery link="file" columns="4"]

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