Open Web listings can be found in some of the 41 states that have passed various versions of Megan's Law. Several counties in Texas, Kansas and Montana, for instance, list the name of the offender, the type of sexual crime, and the offender's current or last address. The only thing missing is the offender's telephone number and the best times to reach the person. But this last vestige of humanitarianism seems to be fading fast. It is understandable that crimes designated as sexual or with a sexual component should spark such reaction.
People have legitimate concerns about their own safety and that of their children.
But it's the way sexual crime is singled out that is strange. The Web is an unstable home for this sensitive information. No matter what its creators may say, the whole community-notification movement is based on the assumption that sex offenders are likely to repeat their crimes. Thus the community needs to know, in a way it just doesn't for other crimes. But Eric Lotke, a writer for the Federal Sentencing Reporter, insists that it's just not true that convicted sex offenders are prone to repeat their crimes any more than any other criminal.