Pushing sex offenders into the next back yard

A question for our local elected officials:

Who wants to be seen as pro-sex offender?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Here’s the latest politicized push that could accomplish little and maybe even do some harm: local governments looking to all but ban sex offenders from living in our midst.

And no, this doesn’t sound like a bad idea, until you consider the actual and practical facts.

Last year, Pasco County banned newly registered sex offenders whose victims were younger than 16 from living within 2,500 feet of places kids go, like playgrounds, parks and schools. For the record, that’s more than twice the state-mandated restriction that most sex offenders already face — 1,000 feet, or about three football fields (end zones included.)

That Pasco ban is broad enough (seven football fields) to effectively kick those offenders out of nearly half the county.

And who cares if these people can’t find somewhere to live, right?

Except now Hillsborough officials are in a panic about a potential flood of sex offenders they fear is headed their way. This week, they unanimously voted to push forward on a similar 2,500-foot ordinance. (Commissioner Victor Crist helpfully offered a cut-rate 1,000 feet for anyone willing to undergo chemical castration, and no, I did not make that up.)

I guess it’s unrealistic to expect anyone who depends on voters for a job to appear anything but steely-eyed and resolute on the subject of sex crimes. Or to weigh in with reality.

First, the obvious: No one wants a sex offender next door or down the street. (Actual fact: A U.S. Justice Department study found that in most sexual assaults of young children, the criminal already knew the victim or, in other words, was not trolling bus stops.)

In truth, convicted sex offenders live in neighborhoods across the county, including my own. A transient lives in a boat in the same tony ZIP code as Hills­borough County Commissioner Sandy Murman, who is pushing for that 2,500-foot rule. It is a fact of living in the world at the moment.

But with sweeping bans even beyond the statewide one, we push offenders into the next city or county for those citizens to deal with. More important: When we make it nearly impossible for people to find places to live, particularly with the families that support them, we also make it harder for them to find jobs and to assimilate. We make them harder to keep track of. We make it easier for them to go underground, to abscond, and — people who study such things will tell you — to reoffend.

Here is what we have come to: Hillsborough County has sex offenders who list addresses as the aforementioned boat, the underside of a particular expressway overpass, in the woods off busy intersections and behind a neighborhood post office, among other places. Miami’s broad ban famously had a colony of sex offenders living under a bridge.

Is leaving them with almost nowhere else to live — except in the shadows or someone else’s back yard — really the right choice?

Sue Carlton can be reached at [email protected].

SOURCE