Smart Phone App Alerts When Sex-Offenders Move Into Neighborhood

Recent high-profile cases have put families on high alert about where sex offenders are in their neighborhoods. Now, there's an app for that.

There are more than 745,000 registered sex offenders in the United States and if one moves next door, you can be alerted before the moving truck pulls off.

"AlertID" is an online mobile service that sends an alert if someone with a sketchy past moves into your neighborhood.

Elizabeth Reece, a rape victim, says people should be aware.

"I think that the entire public should know these things," Reece said.

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But Attorney David Slane says the AlertID gives homeowners a false sense of safety.

"If someone is going to break the law, they are not going to break the law next door. They are going to go somewhere else," said Slane.

It happened to Reece. And her attacker didn't go far at all.

"I think that's insane," Reece said.

When Reece was a young girl, her father Roger Dale Stevens raped her. As a mother, she wants others to be on alert when people like her father try and move on by brushing a perverted past under the rug.

But registered sex offender Denshio Cook calls it another tactic to scare people. Cook is a father of three and had consensual sex when he was teen.

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"I paid my price! I paid my dues and you are still telling me I have to pay now? You are saying that I have to pay for life?" said Cook.  

"I live with it for a life time. And if it happens to my kids, they live with it for a life time," Reece responds.

The makers of AlertID say it protects the innocent. But alerting someone on the registry may be across the street is simply a bad idea, according to Slane.

"Parents and families may say ‘Well, we are not getting any alerts. So we must be safe.' When in reality people may visit. So I really think it doesn't have anything to do about security," Slane said.

AlertID is free and you can use it when you travel too.

Learn more about AlertID.