Source: mace.house.gov 4/22/26
Press Release
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Apr. 22, 2026) — Today, Congresswoman Nancy Mace introduced the Restoring Law and Order on America’s Streets Act, legislation to expand federal civil commitment authority and stop dangerous individuals with serious mental illness from cycling through the system with no real consequences.
“Our streets are not mental institutions. Our sidewalks are not homeless encampments. Law-abiding Americans are tired of watching dangerous individuals walk free, reoffend, and walk free again,” said Congresswoman Mace. “For too long, soft-on-crime policies have prioritized offenders and left innocent Americans to pay the price. This bill closes the revolving door. If someone is a danger to public safety, the system must step in and keep them off the streets. No more excuses.”
Congressman Tim Burchett (TN-02) provided the following statement in support of the bill:
“I am proud to work with my friend Congresswoman Mace on this important legislation,” said Rep. Burchett. “The Restoring Law and Order on America’s Streets Act will give Americans peace of mind, knowing that dangerous criminals are off our streets and away from our families. We should have zero tolerance for violence in our streets, and I am confident that this legislation will help make America safe again.”
Current law allows the Department of Justice to seek civil commitment for sexually dangerous persons under 18 U.S.C. 4248. This legislation expands this authority to include individuals who are a danger to public safety due to serious mental illness.
The bill defines a “person who is a danger to public safety” as someone who suffers from a serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder resulting in serious difficulty refraining from conduct including:
Crimes of violence
Burglary, robbery, or larceny
Public drug possession, use, sale, or distribution
Urban camping or urban squatting
Vandalism
The legislation also requires mandatory Department of Justice evaluations for individuals in custody who are homeless to determine whether they are a sexually dangerous person or a danger to public safety, and qualify for civil commitment.
…
The Search of John Doe
Written By Quiet too long 04/22/2026
John Doe started his search the way anyone would: with hope.
Fifty states. Three and a half million square miles.
Surely, he thought, somewhere in all that space, there had to be room for one man to live.
He opened maps, county sites, zoning codes, and real‑estate listings.
He looked at cities, suburbs, rural towns, and the empty places between them.
He wasn’t looking for luxury — just a legal place to exist.
But the deeper he went, the more the map changed.
First, he learned that federal land — nearly a million square miles — was off‑limits to everyone.
Then he saw that farmland took another 1.3 million.
Water, another 265,000.
Industrial zones, protected lands, private holdings — all gone.
He kept subtracting.
Then came the part that wasn’t about the general public at all.
The part that applied only to him.
Buffers.
Circles around schools, day cares, parks, churches, transit stops, hospitals, shelters, libraries, youth centers, hotels, motels, RV parks, mobile home parks — thousands upon thousands of them.
Each one small on its own.
Together, they swallowed states.
When he added everything — the structural land nobody could live on, plus the buffer zones only he was barred from — the number stared back at him:
2,824,500 square miles.
That was the land he could not live on.
Not because it was owned.
, occupied, unsafe.
But because the law drew circles around ordinary places and called them forbidden.
He sat with the number.
The United States has about 3.5 million square miles of land.
If 2.8 million were off‑limits, that left:
≈ 675,500 square miles
where he could legally live if someone would rent or sell to him without bias.
It sounded big until he realized what it meant.
Most of that land was already owned.
Much of it had no housing at all.
Some of it was deserts, mountains, or places where no one builds homes.
And the actual interior living space — the square footage of every home in America — added up to only about 8,000 square miles.
Eight thousand square miles of real, physical living space
inside a country where 2.8 million square miles were legally off‑limits to him.
John Doe closed the map.
He was… aware.
He had spent weeks searching all fifty states, and the math had answered him more honestly than any person ever had:
The country was enormous.
But the space where he was allowed to exist was not.
And that realization — quiet, factual, unembellished — was the moment he finally understood the scale of what he was up against.
Disclaimer: This work is an independent analytical project created for public discussion and policy critique. The calculations, land‑use reductions, and state‑by‑state estimates were compiled manually using publicly available data and required extensive time to assemble and approximate. These figures are illustrative models, not official measurements, and should not be interpreted as legal determinations or factual allegations about any specific person, agency, or case. Nothing in this document constitutes legal advice. For legal guidance, readers should consult qualified counsel.