Sex Offenders in Christiansburg/New River Valley (low crime, homes)

[Ragmutt]

Hello Virginians--love your state. My wife and I have made countless trips to VA over the last few years and would like to move there. Our jobs are portable and that pretty much gives us the ability to live where we want. There are a handful of places that we're really attracted to, one of those being Christiansburg.

One of the things that's BIG on our list is freedom from crime and Christiansburg ranks well there. City-Data gives it a 2007 rating of 260, with 320 being the national average. HomeSurfer.com names Christiansburg as its 4th safest out of 33 VA cities it's surveyed. That's the very cool part.

Now for the ugly part. There are 58 registered sex offenders living in Christiansburg. Worse, most are not your "18 year old boy meets 15 year old girl" variety, not to downplay teenage indiscretion, but you know what I mean. Instead, when you look at these 58 individually, you find many are associated with violent crime, including rape, child rape, abduction, and multiple offenses.

So my question is how do we reconcile the presence of these 58 people with an otherwise low crime rate, including the fact that in 2007, there was only one reported rape in the area? Is there some specific reason they're all living there and yet seem to be staying out of trouble? Or are they doing their business and just not getting caught? Any thoughts from Christiansburg-area locals? Many thanks.