NATICK, MA — Fall is a good time to take an inventory of who is living in your neighborhood. Natick has three registered sex offenders either living or working in the town, according to the state registry.
The people on the registry are a mix of level 2 and 3 offenders who have been convicted of a range of crimes. The Level 3 designation is reserved for the most severe offenders, and level 2 offenders have a moderate risk of re-offending and pose a moderate degree of danger to the public.
There are three fewer people on the registry in Natick compared to October 2019.
The Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board maintains and updates its records regularly, but that information can change over time. Information is often provided by offenders themselves as required by law. This is a useful tool to help you be aware of who’s living in your neighborhood.
Law enforcement officials and researchers caution that the registries play a limited role in preventing child sexual abuse and stress that most perpetrators are known to the child.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which oversees the National Sex Offender Public Website, estimates that only about 10 percent of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are strangers to the child. The Justice Department estimates 60 percent of perpetrators are known to the child but are not family members but rather family friends, babysitters, child care providers and others, and 30 percent of child victims are abused by family members. Nearly a quarter of the abusers are under the age of 18, the department estimates.
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Here is where sex offenders are registered as living or working in Natick according to the sex offender registry: