Each year, 10,000 to 20,000 sex offenders are released from prisons into communities that aren’t quite ready to accept them back. Restrictions on where offenders can live and loiter are a popular legal strategy to keep children out of reach of sexual predators, but in reality they keep offenders an arm’s length away from affordable housing and employment—as writer Alastair Gee reports in our current issue—and have been known to force them into living in what essentially become off-the-grid, shanty-towns of sex offenders.
Last week, California’s Supreme Court decided that the state-wide laws preventing offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks violated the rights of those living in San Diego County. The case could set a precedent for other counties across the state, especially those with large populations and limited affordable housing, according to Janice Bellucci, an attorney and president of the non-profit California Reform Sex Offender Laws.
[For more of this story, written by Kate Wheeling, go to http://www.psmag.com/politics-...ach-to-sex-offenders]
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