Cases like this might seem to argue for even tougher controls on ex-offenders convicted of sex crimes. But new research indicates that the existing sex-offense regime in the US actually may be making repeat sex crimes more likely.

Since the mid-1990s, legislators have devised increasingly byzantine rules for those who have been punished. Those include sending out postcards when an offender moves to a neighborhood, placing warning signs outside offenders’ homes, setting restrictions on what offenders can do on Halloween, and devising “presence” restrictions banning them from places like parks, malls, and museums where children might be present. That ever-tightening leash has produced unintended outcomes with an almost mechanical predictability. Many cities have devised new no-go zones that keep them from living near places like school, parks, and daycares and have seen their homelessness rates spike as a result.

California passed a law in Nov. 2006 forbidding parolees who’d committed a sex crime from living within 2,000 feet of schools or parks. Less than five years later, the number of them who were homeless had risen from 88 to almost 2,000. In Oct. 2014, Milwaukee passed an ordinance banning many registrants from living within 2,000 ft of schools, parks, day cares, recreational trails, and playgrounds. The number of homeless registrants promptly soared from 15 to 230 in less than two years, according to an analysis in Oct. 2016 by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Now, new research suggests making it harder for offenders to find a place to live might increase reoffending. In a study released in July 2016, researchers from the California and Canadian justice departments looked at more than 1,600 California sex offenders on probation or parole. Overall, the group’s sex-crime recidivism rates were low–less than 5% during the five-year follow-up period. But those who were homeless were over four times more likely to commit a repeat sex crime than those who weren’t. “Collectively, transient status seems to be associated with higher sexual recidivism rates,” the researchers concluded. That’s likely because those who lack stable homes, jobs, and social connections are more prone to reoffend.

Please read the rest of Steven’s article courtesy of Quartz.

Judge Alice M. Batchelder wrote for the court, joined by Judges Gilbert S. Merritt and Bernice B. Donald. Her opinion for the court begins.

Like many states, Michigan has amended its Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) on a number of occasions in recent years for the professed purpose of making Michigan communities safer and aiding law enforcement in the task of bringing recidivists to justice. Thus, what began in 1994 as a non-public registry maintained solely for law enforcement use . . . has grown into a byzantine code governing in minute detail the lives of the state’s sex offenders . . . Over the first decade or so of SORA’s existence, most of the changes centered on the role played by the registry itself. In 1999, for example, the legislature added the requirement that sex offenders register in person (either quarterly or annually, depending on the offense) and made the registry available online, providing the public with a list of all registered sex offenders’ names, addresses, biometric data, and, since 2004, photographs. . . . Michigan began taking a more aggressive tack in 2006, however, when it amended SORA to prohibit registrants (with a few exceptions . . .) from living, working, or “loitering”1 within 1,000 feet of a school. . . . In 2011, the legislature added the requirement that registrants be divided into three tiers, which ostensibly correlate to current dangerousness, but which are based, not on individual assessments, but solely on the crime of conviction. . . . The 2011 amendments also require all registrants to appear in person “immediately” to update information such as new vehicles or “internet identifiers” (e.g., a new email account). . . . Violations carry heavy criminal penalties.

The Plaintiffs in this case—identified here only as five “John Does” and one “Mary Doe”—are registered “Tier III” sex offenders currently residing in Michigan. It is undisputed on appeal that SORA’s 2006 and 2011 amendments apply to them retroactively. That law has had a significant impact on each of them that reaches far beyond the stigma of simply being identified as a sex offender on a public registry. As a result of the school zone restrictions, for example, many of the Plaintiffs have had trouble finding a home in which they can legally live or a job where they can legally work. These restrictions have also kept those Plaintiffs who have children (or grandchildren) from watching them participate in school plays or on school sports teams, and they have kept Plaintiffs from visiting public playgrounds with their children for fear of “loitering.” Plaintiffs are also subject to the frequent inconvenience of reporting to law enforcement in person whenever they change residences, change employment, enroll (or unenroll) as a student, change their name, register a new email address or other “internet identifier,” wish to travel for more than seven days, or buy or begin to use a vehicle (or cease to own or use a vehicle).

Read full story in the Washington Post blog Volokh Conspiracy

You may also be interested in the AP story published in The Detroit News

A state law takes effect that day prohibiting sex offenders from being near places where children “frequently congregate” – including schools, parks, arcades and day care centers – when minors are present.

Robin Vanderwall, president of N.C. Reform Sex Offender Laws, calls the legislation more restrictive to sex offenders than any in the country, except Alabama.

“Even Walmart and McDonald’s will be shut down to them,” said Vanderwall, whose organization opposes the new law.

Gov. Pat McCrory signed the bill into law in July. It is meant to replace portions of a 2008 law that a U.S. District Court judge ruled earlier this year to be unconstitutionally vague and overly broad.

On Dec. 7, Judge James Beaty struck down a segment of the former state law that prohibited registered sex offenders from entering places where a portion of the premises is intended for the use, care or supervision of children. Those places could include churches with day care centers.

Four months later, Beaty struck down another subsection of the law that restricts registered sex offenders from being within 300 feet of locations where children gather.

Beaty, of the Middle District of North Carolina, left intact a provision that bars registered sex offenders from entering schools, daycare centers and other places used exclusively by children.

Beaty noted in his December ruling that nothing in it “prevents the General Assembly from amending the statute or enacting entirely new restrictions that comply with constitutional requirements.”

The state appealed Beaty’s rulings to the N.C. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The appeal is pending. Shortly after it was filed, the General Assembly approved the new law.

Under it, Brandon Michael Wiggins will be arrested if he continues to work at the car repair shop after Aug. 31, said Ronnie Mitchell, the lawyer for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.

Mitchell said Wiggins – who came to the Observer’s attention because of a resident’s complaint – will be told about the law and its consequences before the deadline. He said the more than 650 people on Cumberland County’s sex offender registry will be notified of the new law by mail.

Wiggins, 30, was convicted of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor in March 2015. He was put on probation for 2 1/2 years.

“I got into something I shouldn’t have two years ago,” Wiggins said. “I learned from it. I’m trying to make a living, you know. I’m trying to move on from it.”

Wiggins said he has worked at the repair shop for about a month. He said he understands concerns about the shop being close to the Boys & Girls Club and a daycare.

“I understand that being an issue or a problem, but I don’t have any interest in doing anything but my job, which is to serve customers and work on cars,” he said.

Wiggins said he worries that his name in the newspaper will make it difficult to get another job.

North Carolina has had a sex offender registry since Jan. 1, 1996. Sex offenders who commit heinous crimes, such as rape of a child, are required to remain on the registry for life. Lesser offenses had required offenders to be on the registry for 10 years. The legislature amended the law in 2006, requiring many offenders to remain on the registry for 30 years.

The latest lawsuit was filed on behalf of five registered sex offenders – named as John Does – against McCrory and Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Among the five was a man convicted in 1995 of receiving material involving the sexual exploitation of a minor. The man served five years in federal prison, where he completed a sex offender treatment program. He later completed terms of his probation.

He had been attending his local church, which contained a child-care center within 300 feet of the main congregation hall. He was arrested in 2011 for violating the sex offender law when an anonymous caller reported him. The charge was later dropped.

According to the lawsuit, all five people who sued the state “have expressed concern and confusion regarding precisely where they are prohibited from going. Many times when the Plaintiffs have asked for clarification, they have received conflicting answers, noncommittal answers, or no answer at all.”

The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for keeping track of the sex offenders on the county’s registry – making sure they follow all of the rules, including registering as a sex offender and notifying the office when they move.

Mitchell said changes in the law are needed. He said he wants to see sex offenders who abuse children under age 13 treated more harshly than others.

“The ones who do deliberate acts and engage in deliberate forcible acts and deliberate sexual acts against minors have committed acts that are reprehensible, that should have both direct and collateral consequences,” Mitchell said, adding that people who commit those acts are most likely to be repeat offenders. (Read full story in The Fayetteville Observer)

The Pokémon Go craze is sweeping the nation and beyond, sending young people scurrying through the streets, phones in hand, frantically seeking these fictional little creatures.

It also has politicians scurrying to find heavy-handed answers to trumped-up fears.

That’s because it didn’t take long before someone realized that, horror of horrors, with all of these children, teenagers and twenty-somethings scampering about, some of them ran the risk of coming close to one or more registered sex offenders.

Television anchors, like weathermen, have displayed maps of local areas with Pokémon stops — PokéStops is what they’re called — marked in one color and the homes of registered offenders marked in another, pointing out, with horrified faces but barely concealed glee, the places where one is within proximity to the other.

And now, following a report by state Sens. Jeff Klein and Diane Savino, showing Pokémon, PokéStops, and other Pokémon-related items appearing near residences occupied by registered offenders , Gov. Cuomo has made a first-in-the-nation move, ordering the state to make it a parole condition that no sex offender under supervision be allowed to download, access or play the game.

Read the rest of the op-ed at the New York Daily News.

In October 2014, the City of Milwaukee began prohibiting violent and repeat sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, day care center or park. That left just 55 addresses where offenders can legally move within the 100-square-mile city. And their living options soon will become more limited across Wisconsin. Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed a bill in February that prohibits violent sex offenders from living within 1,500 feet of any school, day care, youth center, church or public park in the state.

Cities and states continue to enact laws that restrict where convicted sex offenders can live, applying the rules to violent offenders such as pedophiles and rapists, and, in some cases, those convicted of nonviolent sex crimes, such as indecent exposure. They are doing so despite studies that show the laws can make more offenders homeless, or make it more likely they will falsely report or not disclose where they are living. And though the laws are meant to protect children from being victimized by repeat offenders, they do not reduce the likelihood that sex offenders will be convicted again for sexual offenses, according to multiple studies, including one from the U.S. Department of Justice.

In all, 27 states have blanket rules restricting how close sex offenders can live to schools and other places where groups of children may gather, according to research by the Council of State Governments. Hundreds of cities also have restrictions, according to the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA). And many laws are becoming more restrictive — along with Wisconsin, they expanded last year in Arkansas, Montana, Oklahoma and Rhode Island.

The restrictions can make offenders’ lives less stable by severely limiting their housing options, and can push them away from family, jobs and social support — all of which make it more likely they will abuse again, according to researchers who have studied the laws, such as Kelly Socia, assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

“If [the laws] don’t work, and they make life more difficult for sex offenders, you’re only shooting yourself in the foot,” Socia said.  (Please read full article in Stateline, Pew Charitable Trusts)

It’s a chilling image: the sex predator skulking in the shadows of a swing set, waiting to snatch a vulnerable child.

Over the past two decades, that scenario has led to a wave of laws around the country restricting where people convicted of sex offenses may live — in many cases, no closer than 2,500 feet from schools, playgrounds, parks or other areas where children gather. In some places, these “predator-free zones” put an entire town or county off limits, sometimes for life, even for those whose offenses had nothing to do with children.

Protecting children from sexual abuse is, of course, a paramount concern. But there is not a single piece of evidence that these laws actually do that. read full editorial in NY Times