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Effective primer on sex offender residency restrictions

By Douglas A. Berman

Now available via SSRN is this piece, titled "Residency Restrictions for Convicted Sex Offenders: A Popular Approach on Questionnable Footing," that provides an effective review of the law and policy of sex offender residency restrictions. Here is the abstract: Municipalities across the country are adopting residency restrictions prohibiting convicted sex offenders from living in close proximity to places that children are likely to frequent.  The number of sex offenders is large -- by one report there are some 550,000 registered sex offenders nationally. As more and more local and state governments adopt residency restrictions, municipal lawyers and planners are increasingly finding themselves at the center of the debate.  The literature and discussions in case law suggest that residency restrictions do not reduce recidivism, do not offer any real protection for potential victims, are generally not legally defensible, and thwart efforts to reform offenders and return them to society...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on May 17, 2009 (boomark / email).