Few Housing Options Drive Sex Offenders to Parole Office, For Sleep

May 31, 2006 — -- In Fairfield, California parole officers keep close watch on sex offenders -- very close. Because sex offenders are restricted from living close to schools, every night in the parole office conference room cots and sleeping bags are set up for a half dozen offenders who can't find anyplace else to sleep.

"This is not an optimum situation, it's certainly an option of last resort," said Elaine Jennings, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections. "It really illustrates the difficulty we've got in placing offenders back in the community once they've been released from prison. "

In California and across the country a patchwork of laws making it difficult to live near schools and places where children congregate is pushing sex offenders away, without giving them anywhere to go.

California has 100,000 registered sex offenders and 7,500 on parole, and you can find out where they live by looking at the state sex offender Web site. Two thousand are classified "high risk", forbidden to live within a half mile of any school. And this week a new bill before the California Assembly prevents even lesser offenders from living near a high school, making the housing crunch worse.

"No it's not easy," said California Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez, the bill's author. "You just can't release a high-risk sex offender the next day and find housing for them."

Some Turn to Motels, Others Sue For Housing

The situation is happening across America as sex offenders are driven from cities into the country. Near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the 24-room Ced-Rel Motel has been filled to capacity with registered sex offenders, and new laws keep getting passed.

In Georgia, a new state law is forcing possibly hundreds of sex offenders to move, because they are no longer allowed to live near bus stops and other places where children congregate.

One specific town may already have the most restrictive sex offender law in the country.

Restrictions in Snellville, Ga. say that sex offenders may not live anywhere within 2,500 feet of any school, bus stop, daycare center, park or playground, making it impossible for any sex offender to move there.

"Now they can still work here, but the way it's set up right now there's no place within the city limits that they can live, " said Snellville's Mayor, Jerry Oberholtzer.

As the web of laws tightens around sex offenders, chances grow that they will challenge the restrictions in court. In Indianapolis, six sex offenders sued the city Wednesday to block a new law that keeps them 1,000 feet from parks, pools and playgrounds where there might be children.

The plaintiffs argue that the law denies them the right to vote and travel freely on roads.

The trouble is that these restrictive laws could be challenged as additional punishment. Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said, "That further punishment, without due process, without any further adjudication, without any further trial could run afoul of certain kinds of constitutional protections and run afoul of our norms of common decency."

At the California Department of Corrections, Elaine Jennings commented, "The goal of parole is to make sure that they're integrated back into the community."

But so far, the balance between the rights of offenders and public safety has tipped in favor of local communities and concerned residents.

"I don't want them around my children, don't want them living in my neighborhood where I have to worry about my little guy playing in the yard," said Fairfield, Ca. resident Sharon Brown.

And as the law stands, she'll get her way.