As Fox 6 reports:

For the last ten days, Kahlil has been back in Children’s Hospital with a severe illness, which included surgery Friday, March 9. Kahlil’s wish to see his father was not possible after the hospital booted him from their facility on Tuesday.

“I’m in the room with Kahlil, and next thing I know security guards and a male nurse ask me to step outside the door. Kahlil sat right there in a chair and they told me I have to leave because I’m a registered sex offender,” said Yates.

In 1998, Yates pleaded guilty to second degree sexual assault in Brown County. A criminal complaint says the then 29-year-old inappropriately touched a 15-year-old babysitter at the time.

Yates says he took a plea in the case, thinking he would serve six months in prison. Instead, a judge handed down a five-year sentence. Yates must be registered as a sex offender for life.

It’s as if the authorities are saying: this man can never change. A person convicted of a sex offense will always be a pariah, unfit for human companionship. Yates told Fox:

“I gave Wisconsin my time. I am not a re-offender. I’ve been free for 20 years. I’ve been a good father, I’ve been a good husband, here it is my son has to pay for something I did,” said Yates.

Yates is now suing the hospital to be let back inside. His attorneys call the hospital’s move “unnecessary and cruel.”

In the face of a lawsuit, the hospital relented in part, and will permit Yates to visit three times a week, for two hours, under supervision. But the visits must be approved 24 hours in advance, meaning that if the boy wakes up feverish or, God forbid, takes a turn for the worse, his dad will not be able to hurry to his side. This seems cruel and pointless. The boy loves the dad, the dad love his son, and there is no evidence of the father having had any further run-ins with the law, or sexual misdeeds.

Lifetime registration of sex offenders keeps them from being treated like humans, which in turn means their families, including their kids, aren’t afforded any humanity. And yet we are always told that such policies are necessary to protect our precious children.

Republished from Reason.com

Lenore Skenazy is founder of the book and blog Free-Range Kids, and president of the nonprofit Let Grow Foundation.

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)