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01/12/2005: "Spokane is bad, Tacoma and Vancouver are worse"

Tom Sowa wrote in with a bit more data. He forwarded an email from someone at the Washington State Patrol, Criminal Records Division that included a total # of all registered sex offenders, by county. Note that this includes classes I-III. I've asked for a break-down by class, per county.

Tom pointed out that, "12 percent of all WA sex offenders are living in Spokane County." First, his math is wrong, its only 7.77%. 1434 registered (all classes) out of a state-wide total of 18450. Second, he doesn't mention that Spokane county only has 7.03% of the total state population.

Anyway, it turns out that Spokane is only #3 in terms of your likelyhood to be rubbing elbows (or other body parts) with someone the state has decided to track. Pierce county is potentially slightly worse. Pierce county has 17% more registered sex offenders per capita than Spokane county, but its population is 81% more dense (persons per square mile). Clark county is much worse. Though it has slightly less than 90% of Spokane county's population, it has twice the number of registered sex offenders in a bit less than 1/3 of the geography. Maybe its Portland, OR's fault.

So, all in all, don't move to Tacoma, or Vancouver WA, either.

I'm still interested to see that breakdown by classification.