As of November 2018, 4,322 registered sex offenders were living in the greater Los Angeles area. As you look for your family’s forever home, you’ll need to know which neighborhoods are most affected. Read on to discover the most dangerous neighborhoods in Los Angeles for you and your family.
Athens (South Los Angeles); Zip Code: 90044
The neighborhood of Athens in South LA has 242 sexual offenders living there. Because of this, Athens is the highest ranking of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
South Los Angeles/Broadway-Manchester; Zip Code 90003
220 registered sex offenders currently reside in the Broadway-Manchester Area.
Central Downtown Los Angeles; Zip Code: 90013
The central part of Downtown Los Angeles houses 206 registered sex offenders.
Southeast Los Angeles; Zip Code: 90011
This area southeast of downtown Los Angeles has 176 registered sex offenders.
Hyde Park & View Park-Windsor Hills; Zip Codes: 90043 & 90047
The two zip codes 90043 and 90047 have the fifth largest concentration of registered sex offenders within the LA area totaling 237 people.
What does this mean for my family?
Several years ago, LA made the news because government officials were building small parks throughout the city in order to force sex offenders to move out of their district’s neighborhoods.
These “pocket parks” were so small that they could hardly hold any playground equipment. Their sole intent was to force sexual predators to move further into the city since registered sex offenders are forced to live a certain distance away from public parks.
This caused group homes for sex offenders to be packed into the LA area. As a result, the number of homeless sex offenders skyrocketed. In 2015, in an effort to reduce the homeless population, the California court ruled that only child molesters had to follow the residency rules that previously all sex offenders had to follow.
Newspaper headlines read “California sex offenders free to live near parks and schools.” This ruling freed 75 percent of the registered sex offenders from their previous housing restrictions. Prior to the lesser restriction, only one in five sex offenders were able to find permanent housing.
Government leaders thought that the homelessness of sex offenders would decrease after this ruling. However, this was not the case. In 2017, two and a half years after the ruling, the homelessness rates of registered sex offenders remained steady.
Why did sex offenders remain homeless? Some cities in California refused to loosen their housing restrictions. Because of this, the state had to sue individual municipalities for them to follow the state court’s ruling. Additionally, many of the registered offenders were not able to get high-enough paying jobs to afford the state’s rising housing costs.
With this many registered sex offenders in the area, how can I protect my children?
- Know where your children are at all times and who they are with.
- Teach children what is proper behavior and what is not appropriate.
- Trust your gut. If a person seems fishy, investigate. For example, if an adult has a lot of toys and games at his home and encourages groups of kids to hang out with him, this is most likely a red flag.
- Make sure your children’s activities have multiple adult chaperones. The Boy Scouts of America uses two-deep leadership. This means that no children can be entrusted with a single adult at any time, and these rules are unwavering. Demand this practice for the organizations in which your children participate.
- Watch for warning signs of abuse from your children. If your child shows changes in behavior, sleep patterns, eating, or mood, these may be signs that something is wrong.
- Know the passwords for your children’s social media accounts and periodically check their phones for texts or messages from individuals you don’t know.
- Know the statistics behind sexual abuse. Most of the time, strangers do not abuse children. Abuse usually occurs at the hand of someone your child knows and trusts. Talk to your children about these statistics.
Regardless of where you live, you or your children can be the victim of a sexual crime. Understand what you can do to prevent this from happening. Click here to see if there are any registered sex offenders near you.
