This new Wall Street Journal article highlights the new awareness of enduring problems with sex offender residency restrictions. The lengthy piece is headlined “Cities and Towns Scaling Back Limits on Sex Offenders: Officials Say Buffer Zones Don’t Prevent Repeat Offenses and Make Predators Harder to Track,” and here are excerpts:
When Palm Beach County, Fla., was sued earlier this year over its housing restrictions for registered sex offenders, its attorneys took an unusual approach: They suggested the county relax its law. Full Article
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CA Supreme Court to Hear Two Residency Restrictions Cases – December 2
I think there haven’t been any comments before this one on this is because about the only thing one can say is, “Yeah? Well, duh.”
In my copy of the WSJ, the headline was “Sex-Offender Rules Rethought.” Implies that some thought is actually going into this, a positive sign.
Has anyone ever heard any of the criminal regimes that have “residency restrictions” attempt to rationalize why their “restrictions” do not include all people who have committed crimes that have harmed other people? Has any supporter of these un-American “restrictions” tried to rationalize that? I haven’t seen it.
It is pretty amazing that people who have shot children in schools are not included in these “restrictions”. It is also pretty amazing that a person can get drunk and run over a bunch of children in a school zone and those people are also not included in these “restrictions”. People who have gotten angry at people who have crossed their yard and shot them are also not included. People who have run meth houses that have blown up and burned to the ground are not included.
There are probably a thousand examples of people who should be included but aren’t. It is complete proof that these “residency restrictions” witch hunt is not really about public safety but is instead just to make stupid, irresponsible people feel better.
Retaliate for the Sex Offender Registries today.