[startribune.com – 12/18/18] A Hennepin County judge has struck down an ordinance in Dayton, Minn. that restricts where sex offenders can live in the community, saying the measure is trumped by state law. The far-reaching ordinance barred convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, day care provider, park, playground or public bus stop — even a pumpkin patch or apple orchard — within the city of Dayton, a rural community of about 5,000 residents northwest of the Twin Cities. The measure was hastily passed by the…
Read MoreTag: Residency Restrictions (SORR)
OK: Police Oppose New Sex Offender Residency Restrictions [video]
[newson6.com – 11/1/18] Tulsa police say that the new laws will prevent registrants from living in the entire city of Tulsa. The law affects the entire state [1:35]. Watch the video
Read MoreNY: Senator Murphy questions State on placing sex offenders in homes for the developmentally disabled
[nysenate.gov – 10/11/18] Albany, NY – Being a sex offender carries with it the often well-earned reputation of being unable to mix with society. Even hardened criminals have expressed their disgust with the lewd and deviant acts perpetrated by sex offenders. A recent study has found dozens of sex offenders in New York State living in group homes for people with developmental disabilities. Their crimes can run the gamut from watching child pornography to public exposure to sexual assault. In his capacity as Chairman of the New York State Senate…
Read MoreFL: Banished
[themarshallproject.org – 10/3/18] The sun has barely risen over Miami, and Dale Brown loads an orange shopping cart with everything he owns. Through the morning’s swampy heat, he pushes the cart to the edge of the railroad tracks, where he hauls the items one at a time into some overgrowth and covers them with branches. His tent from Wal-Mart, meticulously rolled and packed. A garbage bag with clothes and a blanket. He unscrews the lid to a plastic gallon jug and empties his urine into the brush. “You feel like…
Read MoreNY: Banished from New York City [audio]: The Legality, Policy Considerations, and Practical Implications of the Housing Restrictions Faced by People on the Sex Offender Registry
[nycbar.org – 9/11/18] In New York City, there are hundreds of men and women on the sex offender registry who are subject to the Sexual Assault Reform Act (SARA) residency restriction, which prevents them from living within 1,000 feet of a school. This little-known restriction has created enormous constitutional problems. Because our densely-populated city contains virtually no residences that comply with this restriction, prisons are holding these people past the length of their prison sentences if there is no SARA-compliant housing available – a time period that usually extends longer…
Read MoreGA: The Jolt: On Stacey Abrams’ ‘08 vote against banishment of sex offenders
[politics.myajc.com – 9/11/18] On Monday, the Georgia GOP again plunged deeply into the legislative record of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, launching an ad that assailed her vote against a sex offender crackdown as “too extreme for Georgia.” The 30-second spot targets her opposition to a 2008 bill that reinstated a range of restrictions that limited offenders from living, working or loitering within 1,000 feet of a broad range of places where children gather, including schools, churches, community swimming pools and bus stops. The Republican measure was pushed as a…
Read MoreNY: Couple raises concerns about 5 sex offenders living in nearby home
[news12.com – 8/4/18] SHIRLEY – A Shirley couple says five sex offenders are living together in their community nearly 80 feet from their home. Jennifer and Thomas Gritz, who have lived in their home for the past 14 years, say they no longer allow their 10-year-old son to play outside. “I want my son to go outside and be a kid – play in the backyard, ride his bike up and down the street. He doesn’t even do that unless one of us is with him,” says Jennifer Gritz. Laura…
Read MoreME: Strong board grapples with sex-offender housing limits
[sunjournal.com – 7/21/18] STRONG — Selectmen are facing a request from townspeople to prohibit registered sex offenders from living in specific areas of town. The request was made after a group of people alerted town officials that a resident at Valley Brook housing on Main Street is a lifetime registrant on the Sex Offender Registry. The housing complex is next to Strong Elementary School. “I had some members of the public with some concerns that there’s no sex offenders ordinance here in town,” Selectman Rodney Spiller said at a recent…
Read MoreWI: Here’s why it’s time to reconsider sex offender residency restrictions
[kenoshanews.com – 7/12/18] Nicholas Fitzpatrick is now homeless. After serving time for sexual assault — he pleaded guilty to having sex with his 14-year-old girlfriend when he was 17 — Fitzpatrick hoped to move into a home in Trevor. However, that home is less than 1,000 feet from a tiny park known as Jason’s Pond, and that runs afoul of Salem Lakes’ sex offender residency rules. So he appealed to the Village Board for an exemption. Several relatives and residents spoke on his behalf. Fitzpatrick told the board he earned…
Read MoreDE: Lawmakers eye local residency restrictions on sex offenders
[washingtonpost.com – 6/21/18] DOVER, Del. — The state House is poised to vote on a bill preventing municipalities from establishing housing restrictions for sex offenders that are stricter than what state law requires. State law prohibits sex offenders from residing or loitering within 500 feet of school property. The bill to be considered Thursday would restrict the ability of municipalities to impose broader residency and proximity restrictions. Supporters of the measure say the Department of Correction sometimes has difficulty tracking sex offenders released from prison because overly restrictive local ordinances…
Read MoreTX: Commissioners call on state to strengthen sex offender laws
[cleburnetimesreview.com – 6/15/18]\ The problem warrants concern, and is growing, Johnson County Sheriff Adam King said. “We’re averaging two to four new sex offenders per week moving into the county as the cities continue to squeeze them out,” King said. And it’s not just the cities within Johnson County. “As a suburban county next door to a large urbanized county we’re getting a lot of sex offenders moving into the unincorporated portions of Johnson County,” Johnson County Commissioner Larry Woolley said. The problem, King and Woolley said, is the authority…
Read MoreOK: The “Justice for Danyelle Act of 2018”: The Shady Tactics behind another Oklahoma Knee Jerk Law
[sosen.org – 5/31/18] Oklahoma’s “Justice for Danyelle Act of 2018,” an act that prohibits registrants from living within 2,000 feet of their victim’s home and loitering within 1,000 feet of the same, is a prime example of a knee jerk law. This law also demonstrated one of the deceptive tactics that Oklahoma lawmakers use in order to advance their own personal agenda using the public safety issue. To add insult to injury this law is going to be applied unconstitutionally to over 6,800 registrants in Oklahoma and the author of…
Read MoreAZ: Sex offenders are legally living just feet away from Arizona schools
[12news.com – original: 5/16/18, updated 5/24/18] PHOENIX – A loophole in Arizona law allows sex offenders to live near schools, in some cases just feet away from campus. Per state law, it’s only illegal for a sex offender to live within 1,000 feet of a school if that person has been convicted of a dangerous crime against children. According to the state sex offender registry, one sex offender in Mesa lives steps away from two schools, Ishikawa Elementary School and Stapley Junior High. The Maricopa County Adult Probation says his…
Read MoreFL: Safety versus second chance: A home for sexual offenders has neighbors up in arms
[tallahassee.com – 5/26/18] Nestled in a pocket of land surrounded by the I-10 overpass and Mission Road sits the Moon Lane neighborhood. A dirt road that runs along the interstate wall leads to several mobile homes hidden behind a barricade of drooping trees and unkempt foliage. Cornered off and relatively quiet, homes are scattered around the unpaved road with no real boundaries. But, residents of the area are beginning to draw a line in the sand. Neighbors on Moon Lane are fighting to remove a rehabilitation home for sexual offenders…
Read MoreNY: ‘We Just Want Our Community Back:’ Long Islanders Upset Over ‘Clustering’ Of Ex-Cons In Residential Neighborhoods
[newyork.cbslocal.com 5/21/18] GORDON HEIGHTS, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) — Just how much can one community take? There are multiple neighborhoods in New York where the state has clustered paroled ex-cons, and innocent families are paying the price. A 26-year-old mother accused of trying to kill her baby earlier this month created anguish in her Suffolk County community. Her lawyer claims she was mentally ill and a victim of human trafficking, while others say she was an interloper moving from house to house on a notorious street in a hamlet that borders Coram…
Read MoreTX: Houston Is Forcing Its Parolees Out of City Center and into ‘the Boonies’
[injusticetoday.com 5/22/18] Houston has come up with a new way to make life harder for people leaving prison on parole: by forcing the programs that provide them with housing, often paired with job placement and other services, to move outside the city limits. At the end of March, the city council approved an ordinance that imposes new regulations and inspections designed to improve safety conditions in boarding houses and other facilities. But it also requires housing for people on parole — known as “alternative housing” — or correctional facilities to be located at least…
Read MoreFL: New Encampment, “Bookville V”, already has 75 “residents”
[floridaactioncommittee.org 5/16/18] As Legal Services of Greater Miami attorney Jeffrey Hearne cautioned the Judge and the media less than one week ago; unless something is done (about the 2500 foot exclusion zone) new encampments will pop up and “the cycle will continue.” It took less than a week after hundreds of registrants were evicted from a warehouse district along the railroad tracks near Hialeah for a new encampment to emerge; “Bookville V”, is named after lobbyist Ron Book, the man who not only created the laws that force sex offenders…
Read MoreFL: Sex Offender Homeless Camps in Miami-Dade County
[UPDATED LINKS 5/15/18] [cbslocal.com 5/13/18] Ron Book, the chairman of the Homeless Trust joins Jim DeFede to debate the ongoing problem in Miami Dade County where sex offenders are living in homeless camps Watch the video Related links: FAC Letter to Jim DeFede and CBS [floridaactioncommittee.org 5/14/18] A Heartless Man Without A Soul [blog.womenagainstregistry.org 5/16/18]
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