Making Sense out of Nonsense: The Deconstruction of State-Level Sex Offender Residence Restrictions

Abstract

Releasing a sex offender from prison or placing the offender on community-based sanctions, only to have the offender commit a new sex crime, is a policy-maker's worst nightmare. Fueled by misperceptions and public fear, sex offender laws have developed piecemeal and without rigorous empirical insight and testing. While policies and practices are well-intended, they are unlikely to resolve the very real social problem of sexual violence and may inadvertently increase victimization. Such is the possibility with residence restrictions. This type of law is among the newest in an ever-growing barrage of legislation designed specifically for sexual criminals yet what little research that exists suggests there is no correlation between residence and sexual recidivism. This article identifies 30 states with statelevel residence restrictions and conducts a content analysis of each state's legislation. Geographical and other assessments are also conducted.

Punishment beyond Incarceration: The Negative Effects of Sex Offender Registration and Restrictions

“…Many studies have concluded that residency restrictions have no effect of lowering sexual recidivism rates (Durling, 2006;Levenson, 2008;Levenson, 2010;Meloy, Miller & Curtis, 2008;Nobles, Levenson & Youstin, 2012;Tewksbury, 2007;Walker, 2007;& Wright, 2015). These studies also point out that while residency restrictions prohibit a sex offender from living in certain areas, they cannot legally prohibit an individual from sitting across the street near such areas.…”

“…When looking at the research, we can see that many of these restrictions do more harm than good in most situations. Residency restrictions have shown to be ineffective at reducing sexual recidivism rates (Durling, 2006;Levenson, 2008;Levenson, 2010;Meloy, Miller & Curtis, 2008;Nobles, Levenson & Youstin, 2012;Tewksbury, 2007;Walker, 2007;& Wright, 2015), but introduce other consequences such as homelessness and severed bonds between family members and friends. Residency guidelines can essentially banish offenders out in to rural areas.…”

Examining the Correlates of Sex Offender Residence Restriction Violation Rates

“…In the past 20 years, sex offender residence restrictions (SORR) have been widely deployed as a means to manage the recidivism risk of sex offenders in the community (Levenson and Cotter, 2005;Meloy, Miller, and Curtis, 2008). Residence restrictions aim to impede opportunities for reoffending among known, registered sex offenders by regulating their residential proximity to areas where potential child victims congregate.…”

“…Although there is wide variation in statewide SORR laws nationally (Meloy et al, 2008;Mancini et al, 2013), the study states are two of 13 states with boundary zones in the interval of 1,000 to 1,499ft, which is the most common boundary interval out of the 32 states with statewide policies .…”

“…Residence restrictions aim to impede opportunities for reoffending among known, registered sex offenders by regulating their residential proximity to areas where potential child victims congregate. This is accomplished by enacting buffer zones of varying sizes (e.g., 500 to 2,500 feet) around varying protected locations (e.g., schools, day care centers, parks, and bus stops), within which registered sex offenders are barred from holding an official residence (Meloy et al, 2008;Pacheco and Barnes, 2013;Socia, 2011). Implicitly drawing on the distance decay hypothesis (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1984), SORR are built on the assumption that sex offenders choose to locate their residences close to potential victim pools for offending purposes (Walker, Golden, and Van Houten, 2001).…”