Arkansas' House passed a residency restriction bill that I think I could actually support:
By a 93-to-zero vote, the House passed a bill stopping sex offenders from knowingly living within two thousand feet of their victims and from contacting their victims to harass them. The proposal by Representative Dawn Creekmore, a Democrat from East End, also expands the number of sex offenders who would required to be listed on a public Web site. The bill now heads to the Senate.
This sort of residency restriction is narrowly tailored and acts like a de facto restraining order. It's an interesting idea and a much more rationale method of restricting residency without actually banishing offenders.
I agree generally but while I haven't read the bill, I suspect the seeds of unexpected consequences are already sown into this bill. Does the bill make any exceptions for consensual acts (however prosecutable)between teenagers who might go to the same high school or who might live in the same area for example?
Posted by: Steve Smith | February 25, 2007 at 11:51 PM