Five registered sex offenders were arrested at Oklahoma City parks over the weekend, drawing attention to the difficulties faced by individuals with sex offenses in finding legal housing.
Some have nowhere to legally live.
In Oklahoma, registered sex offenders cannot loiter within 500 feet of schools, daycares or parks. Of the five men arrested at Scissortail Park and Myriad Botanical Gardens, four were identified as transients.
City leaders said this highlights a broader issue.
“The spaces people with sex offenses can legally live is just extremely limited,” Meghan Mueller, CEO of the Oklahoma City Homeless Alliance, said.
A spokesperson for Scissortail Parks said that the individuals were found on the property after the park had closed and refused to leave. That’s when the police were called.
City Councilwoman JoBeth Hammon expressed concerns about …
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Get rid of residency, presence, and the registry that way OKC wouldn’t have this problem. Sooner you do it the better Oklahoma will be for all its residents.
All five People Forced to Register (PFR) are listed as transients. When you deny them legal housing, where do you expect them to sleep.
It’s insanity that the government is creating these problems and cannot see that these ineffective laws that do nothing to keep people safe create homelessness every day for thousands. It’s not coincidental, it’s not part of the problem, it is the problem. How stupid can people be to not understand that if you don’t let people find and keep housing, they will be unhoused?
It’s simple – residency / proximity / distance restrictions (call it what you want) create homelessness, create instability, create unsafe neighborhoods.
It never ceases to amaze me how cruel our lawmakers are and how little they care.
This could work? The enforcement of restrictive residency and loitering laws against People Forced to Register (PFR)—without providing viable housing alternatives—may invoke the state-created danger doctrine, a constitutional theory under which government actions that place individuals in heightened risk may incur liability. In jurisdictions where PFR are effectively barred from residing near schools, parks, or other protected zones, the resulting homelessness and instability can lead to unintended criminal violations, such as trespassing or loitering. When such arrests stem directly from civil confinement policies that leave no lawful alternatives, the state should bear reasonable monetary responsibility for the consequences, including legal defense, incarceration, and rehabilitation costs.
Moreover, when a residence is later discovered to be out of compliance—whether due to zoning changes, mapping errors, or policy shifts—the affected individual should be entitled to per diem compensation for the disruption caused. The state must also provide or subsidize temporary living quarters until a compliant residence is secured. This obligation reflects the principle that civil confinement, when not accompanied by viable alternatives, creates foreseeable harm. Such outcomes may violate substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment and constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment, especially when punitive consequences arise without criminal intent or recidivist behavior. Public safety is best served through structured reintegration, not geographic exclusion or bureaucratic neglect.