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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Law - "After Prison, Few Places for Sex Offenders to Live "

"After Prison, Few Places for Sex Offenders to Live" should not be news to anyone who has been following the entries in the ILB. It is the headline to a story today in the WSJ, reported by Stephanie Chen. A quote from the lengthy story:

Laws cracking down on sex offenders enjoy broad public support across the U.S. All states require offenders to report to law enforcement, but Georgia's statute is considered to be among the toughest such laws in the U.S. for its living restrictions and sentences. The law has set off messy conflicts between politicians and others who argue sexual criminals should be aggressively tracked and isolated and those who say lawbreakers -- especially juveniles and nonviolent offenders -- deserve a second chance.

Among the most vocal critics of the laws are police. Some sheriffs say the crackdown on sex offenders forces them to divert substantial resources from investigating active criminals to monitoring and tracking offenders who aren't threatening. Enforcing the additional restrictions from the 2006 law cost sheriffs' offices about $5 million in 2007, says the Georgia Sheriffs' Association.

Some states also object to a recent federal law requiring states to impose strict standards for registering sex offenders, arguing it's too costly and no more effective than their own state laws.

"Oh, my God, it's overwhelming," says Capt. Ronald Applin, who works in the Fulton County sheriff's warrant-service division that tracks down anyone deemed too close to children for comfort. Monitoring more than 1,500 sex offenders in the state's most-populous county requires four deputies full time, he says.

It's not clear whether the laws have had any effect on the frequency of sexual offenses in Georgia. Only 90 of the 15,800 people listed as sex offenders are classified by law-enforcement officials as dangerous "predators," which the state defines as someone who is at risk of perpetrating a future sexual offense. The number of rapes in the state increased slightly between 2006 and 2007, but the laws haven't been in effect long enough to establish clear statistical patterns, experts say.

Law-enforcement officials say the law has forced many sex offenders to move. According to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of records compiled by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, more than 8,400 of the sex offenders on the registry, or 68%, moved between June 2006 and November 2008 -- far higher than in previous periods. More than a hundred left the state entirely.

Still hanging over those listed on the Georgia registry is a provision approved as part of the 2006 law forbidding them from living within 1,000 feet of a school bus stop. But enforcement of that requirement was stayed by a federal judge in response to a lawsuit filed by several sex offenders. If the measure ultimately goes into effect, the vast majority of Georgia would be legally uninhabitable to anyone on the registry, according to sheriffs across the state.

Here is a list of ILB entries on sex offender residency.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 19, 2009 11:54 AM
Posted to General Law Related