California's new Megan's Law website is up and running. It contains a searchable database of registered sex offenders, including mugshots, addresses, and offenses.

Whatever you think about the question of whether those who have done their time for their offense should be publicly outed in this manner, performing a search of your zip code can be an eye opening experience.

In my zip code, for instance, there were 39 registrants (with more than a handful within a few blocks of my apartment). Talk about your rogue's gallery: child molesters, rapists, and all manner of sexual predators.

Privacy concerns kind of go by the wayside for me when I think about all the children in my neighborhood. The rate of recidivism amongst pedophiles is so high that they should be monitored, as well as treated for their compulsions. Hopefully this website will be used to inform ( rather than persecute), but parents deserve to know if their smiling, mild-mannered neighbor is a predator.
  ¶ 5:41 PM