It surprises me not a whit. When I was doing public defender work, we mapped out a similar problem with the ineffectual, passed-without-thought legislation creating "drug free" zones which increased penalties for certain crimes within so many feet of a church or school or CHA, which in the city of Chicago was pretty much the whole city, except certain areas of Lincoln Park, meaning the grassy part, with ponds, not the neighborhood.

Making a crime "more bad" doesn't make it less frequent, it just increases the enforcement burden on society.

How can this not be considered cruel and unusual punishment? Or has that become an outdated concept, in the same way that the Geneva Convention has become "quaint"?

Yeah, I don't see how it's not a civil rights violation, even though shelter isn't a guaranteed right. I can understand the inclination to run them out of town (although I have problems with that too). But that's just the thing -- they're on probation. They can't leave town. It just doesn't seem right, somehow.

I can see how that's unworkable, but I know in some cases the laws are a good, or necessary, thing.

My immediate neighbors are boarding houses, on both sides of me. Both are primarily filled with registered sex offenders and people just out of jail. For the most part I'm ok, because the parolees are non-violent offenders, and all the sex offenders seem to be of the "19 year old dating a 16 year old" variety. (judging by the online site listing the age of the victim and the age they are now, with the year it happened.) They're not the best neighbors, but the vast majority are decent, hardworking guys who seem to just want a clean start.

One was a guy arrested for "multiple offences against a child under 11 years of age." I haven't called in on anyone else, even though we are across the street from a K-5 school. This guy, though? I would see him watching the kids every day from the porch, as they were in the playground. It was horrifying. And damn straight I called the parole board.

"Sex offender" is a huge lump-all catagory. Technically, in some areas, a guy caught peeing in an alley behind a dumpster can become a "sex offender." Saying "all must live X distance from Y" is silly, and overwhelms the system. It would make a lot more sense for anyone whose crimes were specifically against children to be kept away from kids.

Yeah, kelly. Well put.

For one thing, "cruel" and "unusual" in Constitutional law do not retain their conversational meaning. For another, the impact ordinances such as these are do not fall under the rubric of "punishment" under the law. Therefore, these ordinances (which amount to perpetual parole) do not violate principles of due process and double jeopardy &c.

I'm picturing an ankle bracelet that works sorta the same way those shopping cart disablers do. Dude gets too close to a school/park (which has been outfitted with a transponder), and BAM, the ankle bracelet disables his leg, or places a huge force field around him, or something.

It's funny you say that, mudpuppie- apparently something like that is in the works (said the radio station I was just listening to in the car). Sex offenders wear ankle braclets, parents can buy things for their kids to wear that will page them if a sex offender is too close.

Awesome. A whole new outlet for hysteria!

No, no, I get it. If I had kids I'd be hypervigilant. But still.

I wonder what they will do with children? When I was looking at the MI sex offenders list I was surprised by the number of kids under 10 years old there are. Will they send the whole family?

This doesn't keep people safe. There are plenty of people who haven't been caught or prosecuted yet.

The truth is that you really cannot fully trust ANYONE.

And I am wondering just how long it will take an angry vigilante or former victim to go down there with a gun. Like fish in a barrel, folks.

Awesome. A whole new outlet for hysteria!

Seriously. Running around the shopping mall hiding your kids under your coat, giving everyone the evil eye, wondering who the sex offender is. Then you take them to grandpa's house for Christmas and Uncle Creepy corners them in the bedroom. Way to totally waste your energy.

When the British had a problem of this nature 220 years ago, they came up with a novel solution: Australia.

I know a guy who's doing research on this as an example of voter irrationality (among other things).

The idea is that this sort of thing, when an initiative or referendum, is popular with fearful suburbanites.

But suburbs are less dense than the center city, of course, with more open space and with schools that are farther apart.

So when it passes, people have to move from out of the center city, where there is no space that's far enough away from schools and whatnot, to where there is that space... out in the suburbs, next door to the people who voted for it.