This case out of California raises some interesting questions about sex offender residency laws. A measure approved by voters in the state last November bars any sex offender from living within 2,000-foot of public parks and schools, even if their offense was not against a child. The state began enforcing the rule last week, and four paroled sex offenders who were arrested for residing in the zone, whose convictions did not involve children, challenged the law in court. The court decided this week to block the arrest of the four involved in this case, but their request to get the state Supreme Court to put a stop on all enforcement was denied, meaning 850 other parolees still face the threat of arrest. Their suit challenging the ban on the basis of its application to all offenders rather than just those involving children will be heard in court in the next several months, but that's just part of the problem with this sort of blanket residency regulation.
A similar measure was approved in my tiny rural hometown not that long ago. While a search reveals only four sex offenders in our 2,500-person town, none of them living particularly close to the lone elementary school, it raised some important questions about this sort of law among residents. Our town is pretty spread out, so the law didn't have the same effect. But in the counties where the four ex-cons in the California case and the 850 other affected parolees live, there aren't many residential areas not within 2,000 feet of a park or school, they argue. This sort of law severely limits where parolees who, regardless of how people might feel about them, have served their allotted term, can reside. Many of them, for fear of getting arrested again, find themselves on the street – which isn't exactly the best place for individuals police want to keep an eye on. It makes them harder to keep track of, and undermines all the importance advocates have placed of sex offender registries. For the ones who've reformed their ways, the laws are an unnecessary, and I would argue, unconstitutional, additional punishment. And for sex offenders who are free but not rehabilitated, it's doubtful that an arbitrary 2,000-foot imaginary barrier is going to keep them from seeking out new victims.
Rather than concentrate on rehabilitation programs, treating mental illness, and preparing sex offenders for re-entry into society, laws like this serve to further isolate and punish them. And they don't actually have the sort of positive effect on recidivism that communities would like to believe -- they're only feel-good solutions to give residents the illusion of security. It's only a matter of time before one of the many laws of this sort is taken up in the Supreme Court of the United States.
--Kate Sheppard
