One of the recent waves of state legislation across the nation has been laws relating to convicted sex offenders, generally lengthening sentencing, expanding the use of GPS monitors, and restricting where registered offenders can live. Today's Washington Post reports on Georgia's law, perhaps the toughest in the nation, which effectively puts much housing off limits. LINK
The roughly 10,000 sex offenders living in Georgia have been forbidden to live within 1,000 feet of a school, playground, church or school bus stop. Taken together, the prohibitions place nearly all the homes in some counties off-limits -- amounting, in a practical sense, to banishment.
"My intent personally is to make it so onerous on those that are convicted of these offenses . . . they will want to move to another state," Georgia House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R), who sponsored the bill, told reporters.
Since the law's enactment in July, however, a federal judge, human rights advocates and even some of the sheriff's departments that are supposed to enforce the measure have suggested that the zeal for safety may have gone too far.
The residency law applies not only to sexual predators but to all people registered for sexual crimes, including men and women convicted of having underage consensual sex while in high school.
Advocates for the sex offenders say the law is unfair to people who have served their sentences and been deemed rehabilitated. Many police officers, prosecutors and children's advocates also question whether such measures are effective. Most predators are mobile, after all, and by upending their lives, the law may make them more likely to commit other offenses, critics say.
"We should be concerned when we pass laws for political purposes that are irrational," said Sarah Geraghty, a staff lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights, the Atlanta-based group that filed court actions against the law's provisions. "This law will essentially render thousands of ex-offenders homeless, and that's just going to make them harder to monitor."
A relatively new blog, Sex Crimes, by attorney Corey Rayburn Yung, is doing an excellent job covering developments across the nation. Because the issue is receiving so much attention, especially by state legislatures, I'm adding it to the Essential Law Blogs weblog in the left-hand column.
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