Not All New Laws Have The Desired Effect

In the last few years, communities all over the country have been passing more and tougher laws against criminals. This is especially true of sex offenders. These new laws are being passed in an effort to protect people, specifically children.

But this is the real world, and sometimes the real effect of a new law is far different from the desired effect of that law.

California recently passed "Jessica's Law", named after 9 year-old Jessica Lunsford who was kidnapped, raped and buried alive by a convicted sex offender in 2005. The law makes it illegal for a convicted sex offender to live within 2000 feet of a school or park. On the surface, this sounds like a good law that would have the effect of protecting children.

But in passing the law, no one took into account that some cities have no housing that is not within 2000 feet of a school or park -- San Francisco is one such city. Some might say the offenders should move somewhere else then, but the law also prohibits that. The law requires parolees to live in the county of their last residence.

Since the new law has made it almost impossible for them to find a place to live, many of them are declaring themselves to be homeless. Some are truly homeless, and others are now using this to hide where they really live. Since the law took effect, there has been a 27% increase in the number of registered sex offenders who claim to be homeless.

There is no reason to believe this trend will not continue, and that makes communities more dangerous. The police and parole officials are unable to effectively keep track of these homeless sex offenders. They are required to tell their parole officer each day where they slept the night before, but that does not mean anyone really knows where they are or how to find them.

The community was safer when the police knew where these offenders were living. As Deputy Attorney General Janet Neeley says, "Any law enforcement officer would tell you we prefer to have offenders at addresses where we can locate them."

It is only natural for people to not want these registered sex offenders to live in their neighborhood. But it really may be safer to have a known offender living in your neighborhood, where police and others can keep track of him, rather than have the offender homeless and able to roam any neighborhood without supervision.

This is not just a California problem. Many communities all over the nation are passing the same kind of laws, and these laws are having the same undesired effect. We must re-think these laws.

It is more important to have these offenders where police can check on them, than it is to pass "feel-good" laws that do not work.