All Such Ordinances Presumably Will Now Have To Be Revised

08/23/2013 04:32:29 PM

Sex offenders have to live somewhere

"Federal Judge R. Brooke Jackson did all of Colorado a favor this week when he struck down an Englewood ordinance that pretty much barred sex offenders from living in that city.

"Few sex offenders are incarcerated for life," Jackson noted. "Most will at some point return to the community, and there must be a place for them to live."

And yet, he noted, Englewood's ordinance "leaves essentially no place for offenders to live" — thereby conflicting with the state interest in the "uniform treatment, management, rehabilitation, and reintegration of sex offenders during and after state supervision."

The judge is clearly right about this. If Englewood can effectively banish all sex offenders, then there's nothing to stop every other town and city in Colorado from doing the same thing.

No doubt some might find this an attractive solution. After all, didn't Britain and France simply export a portion of their criminal element once upon a time to places like Devil's Island and Australia? Indeed they did — and there's a reason they stopped more than a century ago: It's not civilized.

And it wouldn't be fair to other states either.

Moreover, registered sex offenders have already served their time."

http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_23929324/sex-offenders-have-live-somewhere

*****

Monday, August 26, 2013 

Effects of Residency Restrictions on Risk and Sexual Offender Re-entry 

"On the surface, such practices seem quite reasonable. If someone has engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with a child, then the amount of direct or indirect contact they might have with children should be limited or prohibited. However, as yet, such practices have not been subject to much scientific scrutiny. Moreover, of those investigations of residency restrictions completed to date, the findings suggest that there is little or no effect on outcome—sexual recidivism. Indeed, some have suggested that such restrictions may contribute to reduced social and community stability for released offenders (Levenson & Hern, 2007; Mercado, Alvarez, & Levenson, 2008; Socia, 2011; Willis & Grace, 2008, 2009), and that this potentially translates into an increase in risk, not the decrease intended. This study, completed in Illinois and Missouri, adds another voice to the chorus of research suggesting that residency restrictions are having little or none of their intended effects."

http://sajrt.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/effects-of-residency-restrictions-on.html