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26 • Justice Research and Policy <br />because of their co-location. This relationship may exist because these areas are <br />more accepting of others, or because the residents do not have the social or po- <br />litical power to prevent sex offenders from living in the area. When these condi- <br />tions exist in areas where there are a number of potential targets, however, the <br />likelihood of child sex offenders choosing to live close to potential targets ap- <br />pears to increase. Visual examination of a map does not represent a complete <br />analysis of this relationship, however. A second analysis was undertaken, there- <br />fore, that used buffer zones around the potential targets to see how many child <br />sex offenders were living in those areas. <br />Buffer Areas <br />By counting the number of sex offenders living in the 1,000-foot buffer zones <br />around potential targets, an estimation of the relationship between the sex of- <br />fenders and targets could be made. We found that just under half (48%; 82 of <br />170) of all sex offenders in the data set who had children as victims lived within <br />the buffer zone of one of the potential targets, and over one third lived within the <br />buffer zones of multiple targets. <br />An example of the analysis and results of buffering potential targets is shown <br />in Figure 4. Here, several of the schools and day cares did not have a child sex <br />offender living within the buffer zone. Two areas are illustrative, however. The <br />first is in the center left of the map, where two day cares and two schools heavily <br />0 0.5 1 <br />Miles <br />Daycare <br />Schools <br />Offenders <br />N <br />*Figure 4 <br />Pulaski County Sex Offenders - Offenders and Buffer Areas