Protecting Your Family

Health and Wellness — By SavvyMom on November 24, 2008 6:58 pm

We protect our children from falling, peer pressures, broken hearts, burning their fingers, and etc. We would rather have all these pains ourselves rather than seeing our children hurt.

However, I think we sometimes overlook more serious safety issues – protecting our young ones from sexual predators. We all have seem Dateline segments, “To Catch a Predator” or heard it in the local news about abducted children or sexually abused children by strangers or neighbors or even with family members. I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED BY PEOPLE WHO HARM CHILDREN !!

In Illinois, you can obtain the list of sex offenders and/or offenders who have committed certain crimes against children from Illinois State Police Bureau of Identification – it’s a public record.

If you want immediate access, with maps and graphs, you can obtain similar records online as well. You guys already probably know this, but you can pay around $10 online to get the map of these offenders – they show you where these offenders are living.

I have never used these “pay” services myself, but I think they have more options and services. For instance, one of the websites I have checked out, provides (when available) offenders name, offense details, conviction details, last known address, offender photo, and etc.

On the other hand, if you are not willing to pay, you can also obtain similar information for free online – just go to http://www.familywatchdog.us/. I just go to the “find offenders” section on the page and see in on the map where these individuals are living at.

In additions to the locations of sex offenders you can also view product recalls (toys, candles, clothes, ovens, and etc.), and get access to FDA information on current food and drug recalls as well. I think it’s worth check out.

Oh, that reminds me, when we bought our place I used this website to select the house we are living in. For those who are looking to buy a home or relocating or renting to a new location use this website – you’ll probably sleep better at night.

Of course there are no 100% guarantees, but you can take precautionary measures for you and your family.