Concerned residents — well, Apple users at least — can now get information about nearby registered sex offenders at the touch of a button.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper debuted the new app yesterday across the state, which allows users of the free app to search within a one-, three- or five-mile radius of their GPS location or an address. Information on more than 14,000 registered sex offenders is combed through to produce a map of nearby offenders. Users can then click on an offender's name and see detailed information, iincluding photos, a physical description, a list of the offender's crimes requiring registration, including the age of the victim (s).

"Knowing where sex offenders live can help you plan for you and your children's safety," Cooper said in a press release. "Families are on the go and we need to make this critical safety information available to them where they are."

Users can sign up for email alerts whenever an offender moves near an address of their choice or receive alerts about particular sex offenders.

"By making the public more aware of the location of registered sex offenders, the new app can also help law enforcement crack down on sex offenders who move without providing a new address as required by law," the release stated.

Offenders are required to register for a minimum of 30 years, but some are eligible to petition removal after 10 years. Other offenders — such as recidivists, aggravated offenders and predators — are on the registry for life, and it is a felony charge for offenders to failure to register with their local sheriff's department.

"Law enforcement works hard to make sure offenders register, and putting this information at people's fingertips can help make sure offenders follow the law," Cooper said in the release.

To download the app, go to ncdoj.gov or the iTunes store. For more information about the registry or to search it, click on the link to N.C.'s Sex Offender Registry on our police page or click HERE.  More information about the app, email and telephone alerts also is available at that site.

Oh and if you are an Android user like myself or have one of those Blackberries, officials said the app is being developed for those platforms too and will be available sometime in the future.

What do you think about having this information available on the go? Have you downloaded it? What do you think of the app?