CA: The Stop Predator Dumping Act: When the Solution to a Problem Is More of the Problem

I must admit, when I saw the title, “Stop Predator Dumping Act,” I got hopeful. Someone might finally want to put safeguards in place to prevent “dumping on” people forced to register. Stop the vigilantism! Stop the shaming! And stop treating human beings like hazardous waste!

But I was wrong. U.S. Congressman George Whitesides (CA) is proposing legislation to address the “disproportionate placement of sexually violent predators into certain communities.” I guess that’s what he meant by “dumping” — like dumping trash. An odd word choice when we’re talking about human beings, but I suppose it’s just another piece of the larger dehumanization that has become so common in the discussion of people who are required to register.

But here’s the crazy part: The problem being addressed is largely a problem created by the very system lawmakers keep expanding. According to the reporting, the controversy involves a proposed placement in the Antelope Valley. Apparently, an elementary and middle school bus stop is about 100 yards from the property, while a high school bus stop is approximately 250 yards away. Need I remind everyone that 100 yards is the length of a football field? And 250 yards is the distance of two and a half city blocks.

So again, lawmakers scramble to pass new laws to fix problems created by an old law they passed, there’s something almost comical about the logic. First, governments create enormous exclusion zones that prevent registrants from living in large portions of a community. People are pushed out of most available housing and forced into the shrinking number of places where they can legally live. Then someone notices that a lot of registrants are living in those remaining areas. “Look!” they say. “There’s a concentration problem!” So they pass another law to prevent registrants from living too close to one another.

It’s legislative whack-a-mole: smack one perceived problem down with a new restriction, only to have another problem pop up somewhere else. Florida is the perfect example of this. Take Putnam County, which FAC is suing (now twice) over local residency restrictions. After creating a system that makes it extraordinarily difficult for registrants to find housing other than in very few concentrated areas, Putnam County adopted a rule preventing two registrants from living within 500 feet of one another to address the very “clustering” problem that these restrictions created in the first.

At some point, you have to stop asking, “How do we regulate the next consequence?” and start asking, “was the original policy that created this consequence necessary in the first place?” And that’s the part lawmakers seem determined to avoid. If you make 95 percent of the map unavailable, don’t be surprised when everyone congregates in the remaining 5 percent. Where did you expect them to go if you left nowhere else?

Hey Lawmakers, whack-a-mole might be fun at a carnival, but this isn’t a game! These are human beings. The solution isn’t another hammer hit. The solution is putting down the hammer. Because at the end of the day, the problems won’t stop popping up until the residency-restriction game stops. You can draw another boundary, add another exclusion zone, create another distance requirement, or prohibit another form of housing — but people still need somewhere to live and when you keep shrinking the map, eventually there isn’t much map left. Face facts, read the studies, look at the problems you’ve created! Residency Restrictions do not work!

Maybe instead of asking where we can move these people next, you should start asking why we’re moving them around in the first place?