Nothing’s more likely to get the juices of some communities’ residents-with-kids flowing red-hot than learning of a child sex offender living in the neighborhood.

If you know him or her you can warn your kids to stay away but that’s about it. The offender is not under house arrest.

But: You don’t know about the sex offender unless you have some suspicion and check the state sex offender registry.

But: The registry only lists those convicted. It does not alert you to those who were accused but there was a settlement by the church or the school. Some victims are too traumatized to go to the police. Some parents want it over quickly.

You won’t know that the former priest or teacher has a background of alleged child sex abuse because the cases never went to criminal charges.

Since 1994, every state has been required by federal law to make publicly available a sex offender registry with the names, photos and addresses of convicted sex offenders.

Convicted is the key word.

I’m going to mention some cases where there was no trial and conviction, even where multiple child sex abuse was alleged, and the person (mostly men, but at least one female teacher) is or has been living here off registry.

• This year, a plaintiff identified in court documents only as “MM” sued St. Andrews School and alleged a female teacher had sex with a female student.
• A Catholic priest the Los Angeles Times identified as accused of abusing at least 50 children in New York, Chicago and Seattle moved to Hawaii in 2013 when the church settled. His name was removed from the Honolulu telephone book after the Times tried to contact him.
• In 2014, a lawsuit accused a former Hawaii Preparatory Academy male teacher living in Waimea of sexually abusing two male students during the 1970s and early 80s. The case was settled, so that former teacher is not on the state’s sex offender registry.
• A former Punahou music teacher was accused of sexual abuse of a non-Punahou student although allegedly on school grounds, but the school settled and the man still lives and teaches music privately here. He’s not on the registry.
• A former Punahou teacher convicted of exchanging sexual emails with students at a mainland school was required to register. His name is public — Richard Neal Willetts.
• This month, Alexander Aipolani Jr. was charged with failure to register after his conviction for sex assault on a person under age 14 and his 10-year prison term.

West Hawaii Today has reported that court documents show St. Anthony Church and Damien Memorial School had 21 sexual abuse complaints from the 1950s through the mid-80s.

Maybe we need a law requiring the public and private schools and churches to make public all child-sex-abuse settlements, minus names for legal-privacy reasons.

It won’t help identify the abusers, but we’d have some idea how much is going on and where.