Laura Ahearn

Long Island is home to several important national advocacy organizations, but few have as much urgency as Stony Brook-based Parents for Megan’s Law and the Crime Victims Center. Far from being the self-appointed-hero type, Ahearn got her start as an expert in sex crimes against children while simply doing her job as a social worker. She found out the hard way in the mid-1990s, after Congress passed Megan’s Law, that information on where convicted sex offenders live was available, but only after navigating unwieldy law enforcement channels. Once she did her homework on how the rest of the country acted on the law, Ahearn became a self-taught expert on the issue and decided that such complex cases call for specialized advocates. So she created an organization that offers an online clearinghouse for information on the criminals who are the worst of the worst—child molesters and rapists—in an attempt to prevent sex offenders from becoming repeat offenders. More than a decade later, that clearinghouse provides one of the most comprehensive sex offender information outlets: It maps out online where sex offenders live and also offers e-mail alerts to concerned parents, as well as providing case details, offender profiles and their mug shots. Tireless in her efforts, Ahearn can often be seen leading the charge to change laws that still somehow allow some pedophiles and other sexual predators to slip through the cracks. One need not be victimized to see what an important advocate she is.

Inducted to the Hall of Fame in 2009