Provo, UT is the per-capita sex-offender capital of the nation.
I made this assertion in conversation with a co-worker the other day; I’ve read about several studies which back it up. He challenged this assertion, so I wanted a quick and easy way to be able to figure out how to validate the number of sex offenders in my area, and others. Here’s a useful site:
http://www.familywatchdog.us/Search.asp
Now, obviously, these statistics are going to be very, very rough, but they may be useful. By way of comparison:
- Provo boasts 105,000 people, and nearly 170 registered sex offenders, or about 1 in 600.
- Minneapolis, Minnesota, a town of roughly 380,000, has about sixty, or about 1 in 6300.
- The Gaithersburg, MD, area has a population of around 60,000, and has about sixty, or around 1 in 10,000.
- L.A. has a population of 3.69 million, and has around 1700 registered sex offenders, or about 1 in 2000.
- Salt Lake City, UT has a population (in the valley) of about 1,000,000, with around 670 registered offenders, or about 1 in 1500.
- Tooele, UT has a population of 28,000, with 56 registered offenders, or about 1 in 500.
So I stand corrected. Tooele’s worse than Provo. I’m fairly certain you’d be hard-pressed to find worse statistics outside of Utah, at least.
Maybe I should move to Minneapolis. Or buy my children mace or a tazer for their keyrings.
The most disturbing thing for me is looking at the sea of red on these maps around my home. In most states, there’s a fairly even division between adult victim, child victim, and other offenses, but around where I live it’s mostly children who have been abused.
This worries me, and I’m not sure what to do about it, other than moving to a safer area.
(To acknowledge possible opposition to my conclusion: Sure, yeah, maybe Utah’s better at publicizing the whereabouts of their offenders, or the state has better enforcement policies. I’m doubting that, but it’s a possibility.)
Rough test
Minneapolis had 54 murders in 2004, and has had 31 this year alone. To report a total sex offender presence of 60 people, something must be very wrong with their records. I think your method is too rough to offer valid comparisons…but that doesn’t mean I don’t like the tazer idea.
Metro area vs. city proper
The city proper only has some 350,000 people or so, while the metro area has around 3 million. I only used the city proper. Are you sure that number of murders is only for the city itself, or is it for the metro area?
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Angels on a pin
I don’t know; I got it from a newspaper article that wasn’t that specific. But given that 1) inner cities always have higher crime rates than their suburbs, 2) rapes occur much more frequently than murders (8x in Minneapolis), and 3) sex offenders are a summation of years since to law was passed, it truly strains credibility to suggest that only 60 people out of 380,000 have raped, abused, or accosted anybody over the past few years. (Maybe MN has a very new law–that could make sense.) These numbers can’t be apples-to-apples with UT.
I don’t know, dude. Let’s
I don’t know, dude. Let’s not forget the numerous anti-rape factors we have existing in Minneapolis right now.
1) Jesse the Body Ventura. He has attested on many occasions to how much he’d enjoy putting the hurt on hardened criminals. And he could do it, too. I’d rather face someone like Grey Davis, thank you very much, when it comes to Gubernatorial combat.
2) It’s very cold. Think about it.
3) Two words, my friend: Garrison Kiellor. Imagine you’re a sexual predator, intent upon your prey, when just at the moment of assault, you hear those deep, sonorus tones echoing from a nearby radio, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon…” Mood-killer much?
So far all I know that Utah has to offer in terms of rape-deterrence is extra underwear.
Have you seen it?
It’s pretty mood-killing–way worse than Garrison.