<p>How can you know? Do you know the first and last names of every person on your street? Their legal status?
Years ago my neighbor was trying for a job with a high security clearance. The questions “Hi, I’m just on your porch because Kista isn’t home yet” really sent home to me what we do and don’t know about each other.</p>
<p>I wonder if the town had zoning laws about all of those backyard structures. If my property was adjacent to something like that on the front page of the NY Times yesterday I’d have raised ruckus. For sanitation/rats if not for an eyesore.</p>
<p>I can’t help but wonder if there could ever be any normal life for Jaycee or her children ? How can this be fixed ? So disturbing on so many levels…and I also have to wonder if my own ( and other’s ) instincts about a father of my 12 yr old’s should be paid closer attention to</p>
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<p>No, I don’t have a background check on all of my neighbors, but I do know who is on the sex offendry list within a 10 mile radius of me!</p>
<p>Edit: I quoted and responded to part of a post that is not there, 
Poster had other comments that I responded to that they chose to delete.</p>
<p>I believe this was allowed to go on for so long, in good measure, because we are all so afraid of each-other these days. </p>
<p>[Another</a> tragic story](<a href=“http://wcbstv.com/topstories/neglect.charges.nj.2.1147952.html]Another”>http://wcbstv.com/topstories/neglect.charges.nj.2.1147952.html)</p>
<p>First, I think the Berkeley campus police (both females) deserve to be congratulated here for observing the obvious (the demeanor, manner of dress, and skin tone of the girls). Sometimes we do our jobs best when we get “out of our heads” and into our gut. Sorry if that comes across as sexist, but I will make the argument that the men involved in this case failed miserably all the way from parole officers over a span of 10 years or more to the cop that was called out to the house 3 years ago.</p>
<p>Second, what do you all think of the news that Jaycee was working for her kidnapper by managing his printing business. Latest news today is that the girls attended a birthday party recently and seemed to live a normal life. Who needs fiction when you can have the truth.</p>
<p>“Second, what do you all think of the news that Jaycee was working for her kidnapper by managing his printing business. Latest news today is that the girls attended a birthday party recently and seemed to live a normal life.”</p>
<p>It’s called Stockholm Syndrome.</p>
<p>I know the first and last name of my next door neighbors and most of the people in my block. Since our tax assessors rolls are on line I can look them all up if I want to. I’ve looked at the sex offender map - no one on my block. If my next door neighbors had tents and other structures like the ones that were in this guys back yard, I’d have been in touch with the building department.</p>
<p>[Sex</a> offenders move to Antioch area ‘because they can’ – latimes.com](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-kidnapped31-2009aug31,0,1096874.story]Sex”>Moving here 'because they can')</p>
<p>According to the LA Times, these semi-rural areas have a lot of those on the sex offender lists living within them–rents are cheap, neighbors keep to themselves and police are understaffed. This is not your typical suburban living area.</p>
<p>Just a comment on sex offenders. </p>
<p>In our previous–nice, suburban–neighborhood, I was aware of two under-18 sex offenders who were not on the list because they were juveniles when convicted. In fact, they attended the local middle school. Why was I aware of them? Because I knew the mom of one of the victims. So there may be sex offenders in your child’s school; you wouldn’t necessarily know.</p>
<p>At the house before that, we actually had a level 2 sex offender living next door, with his parents. On more than one occasion, I was aware of neighbors deciding that he was actively dangerous and wanting to have him run out of the neighborhood. He’d been a teenage alcoholic, had offended while drunk at 17, tried and convicted as an adult, and at age 26, had been out of prison and sober for 7 years. Should his record follow him the rest of his life? I have mixed feelings. The problem with registries is that they make it impossible to leave the past behind–that’s also, of course, their advantage.</p>