Banishing former sex offenders does not deter sex crimes but instead creates circumstances that can put the public in general and children in particular at greater risk, ACLU of Connecticut Executive Director Andrew Schneider told state legislators.
House Bill 5449 would ban sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of a school or day care center. In testimony before the legislature's Judiciary Committee, Schneider said that laws restricting where sex offenders may live have had disastrous consequences in other places, forcing some offenders into homelessness and others to stop registering in order to avoid arrest. In Miami, a large colony of former offenders ended up living under a highway overpass and in Iowa the state reportedly lost track of half its sex offender registry.
"We have only to look at those states and municipalities that have adopted sex offender residency restrictions to see that they are not a solution but a quagmire," Schneider said.
He pointed out that in Connecticut half the people on the sex offender registry are already under the supervision of probation officers who supervise their living arrangements, that the law would cover former offenders whose crimes had nothing to do with children and that research shows that housing stability is critical in preventing recidivism.
He cited a 2011 report from the California Sex Offender Management Board, which is composed largely of law enforcement officials, imploring the state to reconsider sex offender residency restrictions:
[T]he reality reflected by the high and still escalating rate of homelessness among registered sex offenders in California is the single greatest obstacle to the effective management of sex offenders in California. The Board believes that the rise in homelessness among sex offenders needs attention because it is so closely associated with an increased level of threat to community safety.
"If you want to protect the children of Connecticut and take the path most likely to keep sex offenders from offending again, you must reject this legislation," Schneider told the committee.
The bill was also opposed by the Office of Chief Public Defender, the state Department of Correction and Connecticut Sexual Assault Crisis Services.
