Background Checks

This activity helped know that some of my friends have a couple traffic violations, but nothing other than that. It tells me that the laws that are broken by most people would be traffic ones. Law breakers are people just like me. I have broken a law and I have received a ticket for that. But I have also broken laws (a lot of speeding ones) and gotten away with it. I believe laws are put into place for a reason, but some of them I see more as guide lines or precautions. I believe I should be able to go the speed that I am comfortable driving in. As long as I am responsible with that, then I would not be hurting anyone. If I did hurt someone, who is to say I would not have done that going at a slower speed. Accidents happen every day and those who cause them are the ones who pay the price. I do however, believe laws like sexual assaulting people, are serious and need to be taken that way. I would never hurt someone like that, but there are people out there who would. But this also makes me wonder if those types of people see the sexual assaulting laws the way I see the traffic ones, like guidelines...

As the third of my friends to take this class, I knew what to expect when I looked myself and my friends up. I don’t have any crimes or tickets on record, and neither do a few of my friends. A few, however, had speeding tickets or registration infractions. I didn’t start to find anything good until I search a few of my co-workers, and, even then, all I found were “possession of alcohol by person 18/19/20.” Typical college stuff. When I checked my parents, I found the their divorce showed up, which is not something I would have thought about. When I think of background checks, I think of a list of crimes a person has committed. However, we are actually looking at court records to find this information. This includes divorce, custody battles, foreclosure, and civil cases, not just crimes.

When I moved on to the sex offender registry, I started with my UNI address, I was slightly disturbed by the number of people who were listed in a ten mile radius of the university. My roommate, who has taken the class, and I were discussing the map and realized that not everyone is on the registry for heinous crimes. While there are many who deserve to be listed, we figured that there are at least a few who might have been wrongly accused or punished for a misunderstanding. We also realized that while this may be true, it could also be the opposite. There may be people in our area who were not reported or brought up on charges who should be registered. There may even be university students who should be listed, but aren’t. Just like that statistics from our last blog, this map does not show the complete picture.

I went on to look at my hometown after checking out the Cedar Falls area. My mother works for the Sheriff's Office in our county, so I had a pretty unclear picture of what to expect. For listening to her talk, I was expecting a lot more registered sex offenders to live in our area. While I did find a few people near both our old house and the new one, she had painted the wrong picture of the number of people registered. I was most disturbed when I stumbled across a guy who should have graduated with me. I can’t say that I was surprised to find him listed, but it was still very real to find someone that I knew registered.

After this discovery, I went back to the court searched to play a new game I like to call, “Guess who from your high school is a criminal.” With the combined powers of facebook and the court records, I picked people from my high school who were headed down a troubled path and determined whether or not they were troubled as I had thought in high school. Out of those I selected, I guessed seven out of the eight correctly. There were theft charges, assaults, lascivious acts with a minor, solicitation, burglary, and the possession of drugs spread out between these individuals.

After using these two websites to get the dirt on people I know (friends, parents, professors, co-workers, ex-boyfriends, and high school acquaintances), I could see just how easy it was to find this information. Future employees, landlords, roommates, and significant others all have access to the things we have done. We can delete or hide things on facebook or twitter, but the court record is a different story.

I have been on this website many times before and it is definitely good entertainment! I searched myself and found only 1 item from 2009 when I was driving without a registration. I was surprised to find that my fiancée didn’t have one thing. He’s definitely been pulled over multiple times, much more than I have! However, he keeps getting lucky and has never received a ticket. I had a fun time searching both of our friends and wasn’t really surprised by anything. Like other people had mentioned in their posts, most of the things I found were traffic violations and possession of alcohol/dui/owi. One of my fiancee’s friends had “use of light restricting light” under his name and we were confused so we asked him about it. He seemed just as confused as we were until he remembered he had been pulled over and ticketed for having spray painted his car lights to make them look “cool.” Otherwise, nothing serious or that shocking was found under anybody else I searched. I’m glad I know about this site now though because it’s a useful tool that could come in handy in many different situations.

I was also entertained when searching the sex offender registry. I searched within 3 miles of where I’m living now (the Hawkeye Village Apartments in Waterloo) and was surprised to find that not many people popped up. The ones that did I clicked on to learn more about their crime. Some of the crimes listed were absolutely disgusting. Doing this search made it seem much more real that sex offenders are not just on television or in big cities; they’re right next door! It also opened my eyes to the different ages of sex offenders. It always seems like when we picture a sex offender we think of an older white man, somewhere in his 50-60s. However, doing this search, I found a lot of young men around my age. This was surprising and definitely unsettling.

My dad owns a couple of businesses in my home town and one of them is a trucking company. After calling him and asking about some of the cases brought against the company, we shared a couple of laughs because none of them were serious, but all of the drivers involved were eventually fired. I almost lost it when I searched my neighbor hood on the sex offenders list. My new next door neighbor is a sex offender, and to be honest he looks insanely weird. Sometimes the truth is too much but its also good that the public has access to this. My mom always had a shortcut link on our home computer, when I was young, to the sex offenders list. At that time I could never understand why there were creepy people on our computer but now I understand that some people are real threats to the community.

I have heard of the website before, however upon this course I never really tried it for myself. I already knew that it was a matter of public record, and was always interested in looking up my friends, and as most people overlook the friends of my friends. Often times when selecting a peer group to hang out with, it’s an own reflection of our interests and a connection that holds the friendship together. However, as the background check activity points out, you can’t always be certain of first impressions, and it’s always dangerous to have the term “assumption” or “benefit of the doubt” in your vocabulary.
Even though I have never been pulled over, never received a ticket, or anything along those lines I looked myself up. I found several other very colorful individuals by my name, but mine was squeaky clean. (A good start for a wanna-be cop) then I started looking up my friends, parents, relatives, and close neighbors. This is where my search took a turn for the worst. Surprisingly I found that under my father’s name, his executor status during the closing of his mother’s funeral through her abstract showed up, something I did not think would be on his “record” even though it is something public. As for my friends I found a laundry list of speeding tickets (some 15 over in a 35 or less zone, and even a failure to yield for a school bus.) it only got worse from here finding several failures to wear a seatbelt, and possession of a controlled substance, burglary, assault in the third degree, and a felon in possession of a fire arm. (Needless to say my impression of my in-laws severally changed.)
As for the broad conclusion I found it interesting how much I could find in just several minutes. Further, in terms of what it told myself about laws and lawbreakers was the general reputation in terms of probation and recidivism. Often times probation officers are so over worked (following several hundred people at once) that crime becomes prioritized. Instead of a general enforcement of speeding tickets per say, the “big fish” such as narcotics and crimes such as burglary or crimes with a firearm take precedence. (This is why if you’re lucky, you can speed often without getting caught, in terms of police discretion.) However, it also shows that the laws are not perfect. I found most of my friends only had a small fine, or limited jail time. This in turn lead to a high level of recidivism, returning to jail often getting out and committing worse, and worse crime each time from possession of marijuana, to assault. In turn, it describes the imperfect set of laws, and how criminals can become repeat offenders very quickly due to the structure of “justice.” In this vicious circular cycle criminals can take advantage of laws, until eventually they reach there “three strikes” or go past the point of no return, hence the term “habitual offender.” This I suppose is why some of my friends have such colorful backgrounds and yet are out of jail due to the course of the ambiguous term “justice.”

After looking at both websites, I learned a lot more about breaking the law and how it can affect a person’s life. For instance on Iowa Court Records OnLine, you can look and see who has had an encounter with the law. I had nothing on my record personally, but I did look at my parents and they had some speeding ticket violations on theirs. I also look up people I knew who have gotten arrested so I could see how accurate the website was. It made me realize how breaking the law is not okay, and any infraction can be seen by anybody. When you break a law, you not only break it, but you also affect how other people look at you in the future, especially future employers. Even if it is just a minor infraction such as a speeding ticket, it is posted there for anyone to see for a long time. I can see myself maybe using this website in the future, in case I have doubts about someone new coming into my life.
On the website for Iowa Sex Offender Registry, I was rather shocked. I knew you could look up on this website to see previous sex offenders around you, but I never thought I would know someone on it! Although it was just a person who has come into my work several times, it opened my eyes to be aware of it and keep myself safe in the future. Just by searching by zip code or city, you can see who around you has been a convicted sex offender. It is a good tool to have, especially if you have small children. If you find a person near you who has been convicted you can keep yourself and others safe. It is also a good thing to have, because anyone can look at it, and it can make the offenders think twice about their actions, and make them known for the terrible things they may have done.
Both websites taught me that any level of crime breaking can affect your life. It makes me think twice about breaking a crime, and I hope that if more people knew about this these websites they would also. It is a good form of punishment, because it is kind of like public humiliation. These websites are good because it informs the public of crimes people have committed and can help keep people safe.

I’m glad to see that I have a clean record! I really enjoyed this activity because it was fun snooping around and checking backgrounds of all your friends and family. The most interesting thing I found was about my boyfriend - something weird popped up on his involving him and his mother when he was really young (about 12 or 13 years old) called a conservatorship. I tried googling the definition but it was really confusing, and he didn’t know anything about it. From what I could understand from different readings, a conservatorship is when an adult, appointed by the judge, manages money and property for someone under the age of 18. This was right around the time his grandfather died, so we’re thinking he got some big inheritance or something. Interesting!
Regarding your question about the information we’ve seen about laws and lawbreakers, I feel like these public records shows a lot about crime and repeat offenders. It seems like when you background check people in prison or with prison experience, their record is a million miles long. It’s sad to see that when people get in more serious trouble with the law, they hardly ever learn their lesson. Also, another thing this had me thinking about is how public this stuff is. It’s kind of like a warning to me since I have a clean record. Make smart choices because if you don’t, it’s on this website for everyone to see, sometimes forever. Scary!

This activity was really fun! I honestly have never visited any of these websites before; and my roommate was in shock to hear that. Apparently it’s the “thing” to do when you are bored doing online homework, which thanks to this activity I have found myself spending way too much time on!
The first thing I learned while looking on the Iowa Courts website, was that you can’t assume some people do “bad” things just because they may look like they have or could. As I was sitting in my room trying to think of various people to look up, a lot of people who I know or have known were running through my head, and a lot of the people I chose to look up were spot free. And I thought to myself how mad it was that I was picking people out that I assumed had a criminal background, when the fact was they didn’t have a single thing on their record. So I learned a nice little life lesson with this activity, who knew!
Another thing I learned was the idea that a lot of criminal activity does start with lots of minor tickets such as tobacco use underage, drinking as a minor, and speeding tickets as well. We talked in class about this briefly so I decided to look for it during my searches. I really wish they could list the offenses in order to that you could really see if this hypothesis is true or not, because I am really curious to know if this is something that could really be proven.
Another thing I saw when looking up background checks, is a lot more of the African American people I looked up had a lot more speeding tickets then the white people I looked up. It’s hard to really know if the white people I looked up just don’t speed, or if it’s really true that there is some discrimination on the people police officers choose to pull over. I personally think that there is lot of discrimination when it comes to people police officers decide to pull over, have you ever noticed the cars that are usually pulled over as well? At least I always notice the more beat up junky cars, and I have a feeling police officers pull these cars over hoping they will bust them for something over then speeding.
Now, on to the website I found creepier, the sex offender list. I have never looked on this website, partly because I have always been scared to find out how close a sex offender might live to me. But, because of this activity, and because I need to grow up, I decided to type in my address at home and check it out. To my surprise there weren’t too many sex offenders in my neighborhood, probably due to the face that I live right up the street from an elementary school. However, my luck, one of the registered sex offenders lives just right up the street from me, how lovely! I can’t wait to go home next time and look up the house number so I can make sure to steer clear when taking the kids I babysit out for trick or treating (I may be a little dramatic).
I also decided to look up the address I am currently living at, in the dorms. I also noticed that there weren’t too many sex offenders near the university either. I also thought maybe, since we looked up Waterloo in class and we could barely see the street names because there were so many dots covering the map that I might not think it was a lot because of the large amount I saw in class.
Key words: police officer, sex offender, public record, criminal background, tobacco use, drinking, minor, speeding ticket

I searched myself and the only thing that showed up was when the state pressed charges for abuse and neglect. (Don't get the wrong idea, everything is fine now) I've never had any tickets or interaction with the law other than this. I understand why this is on here but i would like it to be taken off. I don't know if that's even possible though. While looking through the filings i read everything but i didn't understand what some of it was saying, even though i was informed through the hearings and rulings. They should make the wording more clear.
When i looked up my sister, who was also involved in the state vs my mom, it didn't show up the same. The filings were different and they didn't contain the same material as mine. Although it did appear when i searched her married name but not her surname. I don't understand why it wouldn't show up when you search her surname. She does though have a few speeding tickets and her grandmother sued her in small claims court. The charges were dropped because her grandmother didn't have a real case.
My brother on the other hand it doesn't turn up at all when i search his name. The only that shows up on his is my mother bringing charges on his father for child support.
I would assume it has something to do with their last names being different than mine and my mothers. Their last name was her surname. I have her married last name in which she kept and had when the state pressed the charges. It only pops up when our last name is typed into the system.
I found a few speeding tickets from a few of my friends but nothing that was worth mentioning.

I thought this was an interesting activity. I never realized that anyone could access the criminal records for other citizens. I was pleased to see that I only had 3 tickets left on my record. I got 3 tickets in one night and I have also gotten two other ones, but only the three most recent ones were on this site. I found it interesting to see tickets that my family members and friends have gotten. I am wondering the length of time for tickets to be taken off of the records though. I think that my tickets should be getting taken off soon. I also found it interesting thinking about how many people get tickets and how many people have a criminal record. This is a very helpful sight for employers and landlords. Employers can check the backgrounds before making decisions on whether or not to hire someone. Landlords can do the same thing and see if they are worth renting to. They can also see if they have any violent backgrounds or sexual offenses. This is helpful when deciding to rent to someone. I think this is an awesome site because it is free and easy to use. I ran out of interesting people to search for so hopefully I will meet some interesting people to look up.

I searched my background first and I am pleased to say that I found what I knew would be there, just a minor traffic ticket. This was the first time that I had ever searched my record and I was a little worried about what would be on it, as I am about to graduate. As we discussed in class it is important to know what is on your background because it is possible that something is there that you did not do. Luckily there is a way to fix you background if that does happen. I searched my family, friends, and my boyfriend next. I did not find anything that was surprising, it was mainly traffic tickets. However the amount of traffic tickets one of my friends had was pretty impressive. That was the only surprising thing I found when conducting my search.

It was a little disturbing to see how many sex offenders there are close to my apartment, as I live very close to campus. So many of these individuals must not have restrictions on where they are able to live. I also searched my parents’ house and was shocked to see that a couple houses down the road there is a sex offender. I have never met him personally but I remember hearing about what happened though town gossip; he abused his children several years ago. I was surprised to see that he lived so close as I previously thought he lived further away.

My overall experience of searching these two sites was very interesting as well as surprising. I have a feeling that I will be checking the sex offender site every time I move. I am very glad Iowa makes these sites free for the public to use. It is also very easy to navigate and find what you are looking for, which makes things a lot easier.

This activity was AWESOME. I found it so funny to look up all my friends and see if they were criminals. I first started by searching myself. I have never been pulled over or anything like that. I wasn’t surprised to find out that I had nothing on my record. At least not yet! I then searched through all of my ex girlfriends. I instantly found the speeding ticket that one of my ex girlfriend’s talked about for weeks. I tried to make her feel better, but when I saw that she had to pay 195 dollars; I understood why she was so upset. It was also really funny to some of my friends who I thought would never break the law had. Some of my friends who I thought were “goodie goodies” were actually criminals. They didn’t do anything that big, more of just stealing some stuff every now and then. I was also able to use the case search to figure out if some of the rumors about one of my friends were true. I can now say that those rumors that I heard were actually true. It was funny until I realized that he had to pay over 700 dollars for being intoxicated. After a while, I had three of my friends join me in the search of random people. It turns out there is a lot of people out there we have committed the awful crime of speeding. I then turned my attention to the sexual offenders list. I was really surprised when I found three people that I went to high school with. Some of them I had class with. They seemed like really nice people. I would have never thought that they would have been able to do some of the things they were accused of. I was also surprised that there were so many sex offenders that lived around me. I instantly wanted to put up a sign that says a sex offender lives here in their friend yards. However, that would probably get me in trouble with the law. Also, who knows the certain circumstances of the arrest? After looking at both websites, what I learned about law breakers and laws are that some law breakers are really surprising. I would have never thought that some of my friends from high school could have been capable of such things. So I guess you never really know what kind of person can commit a crime until they actually do it. Some really good guys that I knew from high school committed sexual assault. Another thing that I learned was that a lot of people speed. Some of my friends have had multiple speeding tickets. It makes me think that maybe our speeding laws and other traffic laws don’t actually stop people from breaking laws. I don’t think that fines are that effective to be honest, because people continue to get speeding tickets. I think that laws need to change so they actually discourage people from committing crimes again. Obviously, what we are currently doing doesn’t stop people from breaking the traffic laws. So maybe we should increase the amount of money that people have to pay. Or maybe if social scientist could figure out a way to discourage people from violating crimes without increasing the amount of money, they could do that. So overall, the things that I learned are that the people that commit crimes don’t always look like classic criminals, finally, that we need to find a better way to detour people from committing crimes.

When I did the background check on myself I found what I thought I'd find; a couple tickets that were paid off and that is it. I was hoping that would be all I found because I didn't want to have anything unpaid for. I did a couple background checks on my friends and they didn't have much either. I did do a background check on someone that I did know would have plenty of tickets here and sure enough, he had numerous court cases and many unpaid tickets. Can you get a arrested for having too many unpaid tickets? I think it is a good thing to have these background checks and sex offenders list online so everyone can know things about the people around them. I mean, it does suck for the people that are on the sex offenders list because then everyone will look at them and think they are creepy or weird and it could be for something as minor as urinating in public. I do not think that part is fair, but since they did commit this crime the public should know. I just don't like how anyone can find something out about anyone just by using the internet. That is the thing that disturbs me.

This tool is so addictive! It starts off with looking yourself up, then your parents, your boyfriend, his ex, etc. Not only is it interesting to see the crimes of people you know, but it is a good tool to look up future babysitters, contractors, employers, or any other person you have to trust to a certain extent. After looking at these lists of crimes for different people, it puts things in perspective. Like we have discussed in class, we have a certain stigma in our minds of what a crime is: robbery, murder, rape, etc. But crime is anything that goes against the law. It can be as simple as not wearing a seat belt. I also found it interesting to see where people with lots of charges started. Like we also saw in class some are simple traffic violations. On another note, the sex offender registry is always disturbing. There are quite a few living in my area, which is around College Street. I can't help but feel bad for some of the people who get put on the registry for things like peeing in a park. Although it is not a good habit, it isn't worthy of being on this list for such a long time.

A friend showed me how to do this just a couple months ago, but I didn’t know a few things about the site that I do now… such as the “financial” link where you can see how much a charge cost someone. I looked up a few friends that I knew had DWI’s, and was shocked to see that they cost close to $2000. As if the permanent record and suspension of license weren’t enough… you just never really hear about the actual fine that they have to pay in addition. As for myself, I have two drinking tickets that I’m not happy about. I knew they would still be on my record, but it did remind me that I need to get the last one expunged. I’m not really sure how to go about this, so I’m hoping Dr. MacLin will have some advice for me! That is a process that I do not understand at all. I know that it is possible to get something expunged from your record, but isn’t it possible for someone to still retrieve that information if they have the right tools? Either way, it would be nice to have my second offense off of this site, as I assume this is how employers seek public records.

I have 4 registered sex offenders within a one-mile radius of my apartment. They were all males. One thing that I wish the website would provide are definitions of the common convictions. What constitutes “indecent contact” or “enticing away” or “lascivious act solicit?” It doesn’t really provide me with much information if I have to idea what the convictions actually mean. Guess that’s why I’m taking this class!

Just like everyone else, I found that almost everyone has some sort of charge under their name, and the majority are traffic violations. The next most common infractions were related to alcohol, but that could be because most of my friends are around my age group and have been in college recently. The only person I found nothing on was my dad. He said he had a couple of speeding tickets in Texas, but since they moved to Iowa about 20 years ago, he hasn’t gotten a single ticket! Overall, I think these websites shed a new light on law breaking for me. It doesn’t really make sense to me how much discretion police officers have. Traffic violations are one thing… I’ve gotten pulled over a minimum of 5 times for speeding, and never once received a ticket (except by a UNI cop – and that doesn’t even show up on your record!) Others are less fortunate – like a friend of mine from high school who has gotten pulled over seven times and received seven speeding tickets. Then you have infractions related to alcohol. This seems even more unfair to me, because they are a bit more serious. I have to be worried about future graduate schools and employers looking at my public record and seeing two tickets related to underage drinking. Is it because I broke that particular law more than others? I really don’t think so. It’s the timing, the situation, and the officers on duty that decided what will be on my public record.

I knew that I would have at least two things come up when I looked at my criminal record, only because I’ve had a speeding ticket and I have been in a car accident. The thing that surprised me was that there was another woman named “Erika Conner”. She had a different birthday but she had a whole lot of cases filed against her. Mostly civil disputes and evictions, I had a mild freak out when I saw all the charges, but felt a little better when I realized it wasn’t against me. When it comes to the sex offender registry I am less nervous about my current address; I live in a pretty safe apartment complex. I was more freaked out by the fact that there were so many sex offenders near where I grew up. I didn’t live next to a school, but it was a fairly nice neighborhood. So when so many came up it scared me a little and made me wonder about my neighbors that were always kind of creepy. I feel like in order to look at this information correctly you should be educated, if someone sees someone on the sex offender registry they may automatically think that person raped someone, or something along those lines. However, it’s not that clear cut. As for the court cases, if someone has a lot of traffic violations then it could look as if they are more of a criminal than they actually are. I feel that its good to have this as public information, but in order to see the records correctly people need to be aware of what is a ‘bad crime’.

This was a really interesting assignment. I was interested to see just how many other people with my name that had offenses. Another thing that I found interesting was to check people I graduated with from high school with a record and see how things have turned out. For some it was just one or two offenses, for others.. well the list goes on and on. Then when I went to the sex offender registry I was kinda freaked out seeing all the people that I knew from my home town that were on the list. I'm from a small town, so I would think something like this would have been public knowledge and for a few I found it was. That still left the few that were unknown to me; and I'll be honest and say its kinda disturbing how many there were and how they're all situated in one part of town (the town is practically built around the schools).
This assignment has reinforced the fact that anything that you do can or will end up on the internet. By breaking the law its not just some inopportune picture your buddies will laugh at, its something that could affect your ability to get a job or mandate where you live! So I guess you could say its a reinforcer to not break any laws, because otherwise people will find out and that could change your life.

I knew that you could look up court cases, but I never knew how to look up individual cases in Iowa. I looked up my criminal history and was a little surprised how many cases were on my record. All of my cases involved traffic violation and I knew that I had been pulled over many times. The thing that surprised me was how many of my cases weren’t on records, I have been issued many tickets for speeding, but some aren’t online. I looked up my brother who has been to court many times for civil cases, because he rents properties to people that didn’t pay rent. Then he also had traffic violations when he was in high school and was in accident which was on his record.
I looked up the sex offender website and was shocked to see how many sex offenders on in Blackhawk County. Many of the people that are the website have very low violations and pose no serious harm to people around them. I do like that sex offenders have to register and update their information yearly for people to know. Serious sex offenders should be on list and should be checked in on regularly to prevent further crimes.

After looking up myself on Iowa courts I wasn't surprised at what I found. I knew that I had been arrested once and had a couple prior traffic tickets. I think it is a little weird that something as small as a seat belt ticket is on there. Also I saw that a ticket for failure to maintain control was dismissed by the court so I don't know why that is on there either. All I did was rear end someone and there was not any damage but a little scratch. I also looked up one of my friends that I knew had a couple prior run ins with the law and I was surprised to see actually how many. A lot of them were moving violations, but a couple were a little more interesting to read. He had so many that I did not even want to look into all of them. Looking at court records tells me that if a person has something on their record they are pretty likely to have more than one mark against them.

I went on the sex offender registry and typed in my house in Cedar Falls. There were a lot of people within 2 miles of me. It is a little strange but as a man I think I will be fine. I also looked up my parents house in Dubuque and was actually surprised at how few sex offenders showed up. Living in a bigger city than Cedar Falls I expected it to light up like a Christmas tree. I only checked within a two mile radius though and I live uptown, so I imagine that maybe the majority of sex offenders in Dubuque live downtown.

At home my family and I always used to do this and "creep" on people. I looked myself up and I have no records. I did get pulled over one time, but I just received a written warning, so nothing went on to Iowa Courts Online. For fun, I also looked up some of my friends and family members. Most of the things they have on their records, if any, are just simple traffic violations or civil disputes.
I also went on to the sex offender registary and in my little town back at home their were only 2 registered within a mile of my house, which is not a lot. I also volunteer at House of Hope in waterloo..So I looked up how many sex offenders lived within a one mile radis of the building and my jaw dropped when I counted FOURTY FIVE! That is crazy. It just shows how careful you need to be, especially in Waterloo!

With this activity I was really surprised to see how many sex offenders lived within a 4 mile radius of me. Some even lived on the same street as I do and their faces looked familiar. The website clearly displayed different classifications of sex offenders; if they were male or female, if they had adult or minor victims and if they were registered sex offenders with no restrictions. I was also really surprised to see that you could be a sex offender without restrictions. By no restrictions I mean they did not have to live within two thousand feet of a existent property encompassing a school or a child care facility. I suppose each individual case is different but in my opinion all sex offenders should not be allowed to live near any facility containing children. As far as the Iowa Courts online website, I have been working with this website for a while. It is great when I need to look a client up to make sure there aren’t any filings that I have missed for the attorney. A lot of the times a physical file within the office can get jumbled around and things are often misplaced, so this website really does prove useful in those times. I did look up my brother though just because I was curious to see if he had gotten into any trouble that I didn’t know about and I was surprised to see how many traffic violations he had received in the past. I like how this website enables you to look at the filings as well as the criminal charges and financial aspect of different cases. The legal practice demands that you be on top of dates and this cite certainly helps.
Laws and law breakers come in a wide variety all use discretion. Discretion is the ability to take in the sensory information around you and perceive it as either something to take action on or to leave it alone. It is from there that police, lawmakers, judges and even individual people make decisions that can affect the lives of many. Discretion directs the legal system in my opinion. For one officer something seen as mundane might be seen from another officer’s view as something to take action on. Same thing can be said all the way up the hierarchy of democracy. While we have clear laws that state what is considered right or wrong, it is how we perceive it that counts.

After looking at the criminal background checks, and sex offender list I realized that people need to be extremely careful, and really need to "Think" before they put their thoughts into action. The criminal background checks really didn't concern me, for I haven't even gotten a ticket, but I figured that I should make sure that a serial killer didn't have my same/similar name. Luckily, I was safe. I feel that people, those who commit crime, forget how easy it is for someone to run a background check on them. For instance when Dr. MacLine talked about how she rents to people, and if they are on the sex offender list( i.e child malestor), or have a mile long criminal backgrond, she is more than likely not going to rent to them. These records are posted for years, and they are easily acessible. Having the Criminal Background checks/sex offender list provide the public a grasp on where these people are living, if in their same town. But I will argue that men/or women that are the sex offender list due to an incounter when they are 17-18 years old with some one who is either their same age or a couple years younger is more than likely a "stupid teenage hormone" related decision/mistake. When it comes to grown men having a sexual incounter with a child, thats a different story. I was shocked when I had found some familiar faces on the sex offender list that were from my home town. All in all, I'm glad that this information is public and available.