One week after a New York court struck down Rockland County's sex offender banishment law (opinion available here), State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith has proposed a new bill entitled “Major Statewide Legislation Aimed to Protect Children from Sex Offenders,” (available here) which prohibits a sex offender from living anywhere in New York within 1,000 feet of any park, daycare center or school building for at least ten years after release. From f/k/a:
Because Oberlander held that State law and policy pre-empted action by local units of government with regard to sex offender residency restrictions [SORR], and about 80 local SORR laws are on the books across New York State, some statewide action is indeed warranted. What we did not need, however, was a stampede to spread residency bans that are a bad idea on a local level throughout the entire State.
It takes no courage at all for a politician to support such residency bans. It does take courage, and a deep sense of commitment to fair and effective government, to resist the temptation to “do something/anything” and make believe the problem is solved.
The text of S.01300 has been posted. It would be an amendment to Section 168-b of the correction law. Under the new Sec. 168-W (1) “No sex offender shall reside in a residence that is within one thousand feet of any” school, building where day care is provided, or park.
The residency ban will last “for the greater of ten years or the period or term of probation, parole, conditional release or post-release supervision,” and “shall apply to sex offenders convicted or released on or after” the law becomes effective [sixty days after it becomes law].
Sen. Johnson is right that the many local laws have created a “confusing patchwork” that we “need to simply.” But, he is also right that we need to get our laws right. Rather than calling for hearings to determine whether current State policy is wise and effective, and whether residency bans actually protect children, Sen. Smith and Sen. Craig Johnson have done the politically expedient thing and immediately moved to impose on the entire state a law that many law enforcement and criminal justice experts have found to be not merely ineffective, but actually counterproductive — and, which will put an expensive and time-consuming burden on law enforcement.
Senator Smith, along with Senator Johnson, has decided to mollify the excessive fears of some members of our community by taking rights away from a disfavored group, even after they have served their time and have met their parole or probation requirements, and with no regard to the actual risk presented by each individual offender.
The response provides an interesting contrast with New Jersey. In that state, several courts struck down residency restrictions on preemption grounds. However, as far as I know the state legislature didn't make a political issue out of it. In New York, it seems like the legislature has taken a different approach. The state has been free to pass residency restrictions all along - so this seems like a basic attempt to politicize a court decision. I wonder if the bill will gain traction.
The NJ legislature was recessed for the summer when the NJ court decision was issued. There was some noise from some legislators for the state to pass a law which explicitly gave towns the rights to enact residency laws. Nothing ever came of it.
It's hard to say what will happen in New York. In the past(when it was under Republican control), the NY Senate would pass almost any bill that had the words "sex offender" in it. I had hoped that this would have changed when the Democrats won control. Perhaps to some extent it has. This bill is not as extreme as residency laws the Senate has previously passed.
The New York Assembly seems to pay more attention to facts and reason on this issue. Let's hope the trend continues.
Posted by: David Hess | February 03, 2009 at 12:19 AM
It seems to me that before you can tell the sex offender where he can live you have to figure out how to punish them properly for not maintaining the registry to begin with. I have reported a level 2 sex offender on more then one occasion for not maintaining the proper address. He did plead guilty to a felony that would have made him a predicate felon had the registry been under penal law instead of corrections law. So he gets 5 years probation instead of going back to jail. The NYS Sex oFfender Registry isn't worth the paper it is written on if it doesn't deter the sex offenders from just blowing it off. Lets Fix this.
Posted by: Veronica Robinson | March 01, 2009 at 09:36 PM