The state of West Virginia has launched a search engine that provides parents with a way to check up on the people their children have been corresponding with over the internet:

Under a 2001 law, convicted sex offenders have had to register e-mail addresses and screen names with the State Police * but that law made the information confidential. With the new search engine, parents can enter screen names or e-mail addresses, and if those match up with any of the more than 2,800 registered sex offenders in West Virginia, the Web site will link to the offender’s information page, which includes the current address, description and criminal offense.

…

By law, registered sex offenders must notify State Police of all e-mail addresses and screen names, just as they must provide their current places of residence.

For most offenders, failure to provide the correct Internet information to the State Police is a felony, punishable by one to five years in prison for a first offense, and 10 to 25 years for subsequent convictions.

I suspect that Evan Jenkins, the state Senator who pushed for making this information public last year, probably had his heart in the right place. I believe that he truly wants to help protect the state’s children. Unfortunately, I fear that this law (and its counterpart, the 2001 law that requires sex offenders to register) is ultimately useless. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.

First of all, these are convicted criminals. They’ve already shown that the law won’t stop them from sexually assaulting others. If they’re willing to violate that law again (and if they’re not going to be assaulting anyone else, the registry is pretty much a moot point), I can’t imagine they’re not also willing to violate the law that requires them to register their e-mail addresses.

Secondly, I fear that the presence of this search engine might lead to a false sense of security. Parents see their child conversing with a name they don’t recognize, they check on the sex offender search engine, and nothing pops up.

Also, e-mail addresses and IM screen names aren’t like physical addresses and phone numbers. A new physical address takes a bit of effort, as does a new phone number. In the time it has taken me to write this post so far, I could have generated a dozen new e-mail addresses (on my own domains, from my ISP, or on several free e-mail sites), and a similar number of new IM screen names. Yes, it would be illegal for a convicted sex offender in West Virginia to do that without informing the state police, but as I pointed out before, these aren’t people who have shown a large amount of respect for the law in their previous behavior.

Unless we are willing to actively monitor every keystroke that a convicted sex offender makes, it’s going to be nigh-impossible to truly know whether they’ve registered all of their screen names. Of course, if we’re willing to do that, if we have such a fear that these individuals will relapse and commit these crimes again on new innocent victims, why are they allowed to be out in public in the first place?

I’ve said before that, when dealing with the government, I don’t usually ask why it shouldn’t do something; I ask to be convinced why it should. Let’s assume that the law won’t be effective, that most of those criminals to whom it applies either a.) don’t recidivate or b.) get around the law. Let’s say that, over the next three years, it protects one potential victim. What is the harm? Isn’t that worth it?

I don’t have children of my own, but on my desk at work, I have several pictures of my cousin, who just turned two. Sitting in my e-mail box right now, I have a picture of one of my best friends sitting with his wife and his daughter. Looking at them, I can’t tell you that it’s not worth any amount of money and manpower to save just one child. This law doesn’t affect law-abiding citizens in any negative way (other than government money being spent on a hugely inefficient project, but that’s nothing new); at worst, it inconveniences people convicted of sexual assault (or is that at best?).

In the final analysis, I believe that this search engine is probably not going to be particularly useful in helping to combat sexual predation online, but as long as parents don’t rely on this alone as a method of protecting their children, it causes no significant harm that I can see, and I hope it works.