I use an iPhone. I love it. Yes, I can play games, check my email, browse the web, and watch movies, on my phone. Sometimes it’s a great pacifier for Melody when we’re out and she’s antsy. I can pull up one of the many pre-school games that she likes and she’ll learn her letters without even knowing it.

But, being the mom I am, I don’t want my phone to be relegated to expensive toddler entertainment device. So, one app I found and bought is called Offender Locator. Yes, it is what you think it is. It locates offenders. In particular, it locates sex offenders. In compliance with Megan’s Law, sex offenders are required to register their address with the state and this app draws on that information to help the public be aware of just who lives around them.

I’m not sure completely how Offender Locator works, but I can enter any address into the search box, and it will return a list of all the registered sex offenders, their registered address and distance from the target address (i.e. my house). Because I don’t want any of these people mad at me, I’ve gone to the trouble of blocking out their last names and addresses, but this is public record information.

For even more fun, it will return a map showing all the little red balloons over the sex offender’s homes in relation to my little green balloon.

For the ultimate scare, you can get a photo of the offender and a description of the charges that landed him or her on the sex offender registry in the first place. It tells you their date of birth, height, weight, hair and eye color.

It makes me sick that there even needs to be a Megan’s Law or Offender Locator app for my iPhone, but I am somehow mollified to know that the closest creep to my house lives in an assisted living facility and probably wears diapers and drools on himself all day long. There may be some small justice to that, but I’m not certain.