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?
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The introduction to this type of serial legislation continues to make an important point: the passage of legislation lacking valid substance is common in the registry. Individuals on the list are being socially reassigned as offenders or predators, and the outcomes may be the same for either designation.
The registry is accepted public policy, and it uses digital pillory, embedded data, holograms, and plain text on government-issued identification to strengthen the ability to expose people listed on the registry.
The concept is deep, too, raising the possibility that someone on the list may find a retroactive covert designation on their birth certificate. So, the ability to identify people on the list has been secured. Now it is being raised to a level of elimination for those on the list’s ability to live outside of confinement. According to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, the number of SVPs is small. This legislation may indicate that a single SVP placement is unacceptable, and that this is the next step toward eliminating public residency statewide. This legislator does not see a problem, nor a whack-a-mole. This might be, in his mind, simply a methodical approach to the total elimination of a specified, legally reassigned deviant. None of this type of legislation is necessary; what it does is allow for discrimination based on a conviction to satisfy a possible innate hate found within humanity. Consider this: Alan Turing was convicted of Gross Indecency, homosexuality. As homosexuality loses its hate stigma in the USA and UK, someone has to take hate’s place; who better than a certain class of criminal convictions? The solution is to put down the hate hammer, but for lawmakers, it’s to get a bigger one. Stop the hate!
How about the “Stop electing stupid politicians” Act? But I digress…
What is the repeat offense rate of those who are “dumped” in these areas? Anyone?
Do you know if this is being purposed for Offender designations as well, or is it just classification of predator status?
Here is the sponsor’s press release.
https://whitesides.house.gov/2026/08/27/rep-whitesides-introduces-legislation-to-protect-the-antelope-valley-by-stopping-the-dumping-of-sexually-violent-predators-in-rural-communities/
With the graying of America there is something creeping into exposure, it’s the registered lifetime homeless sex offender with no supportive family and no finances that suffers catastrophic health event such as the inability to care for themself. I investigated this due to the thought of a paralyzing stroke from high blood pressure. The scenario is grim and evil. Case Managers already report impossibilities in placing people in this condition to where hospitals have no where to release them to. Imagine that person locked in can’t take any part in their determination, can’t report abuse, it’s happening now.
From nearly every angle, the situation degrades into a profound state of limbo:
Trapped Inside Your Own Body: Experiencing severe aphasia and paralysis after a stroke means being completely aware (or partially aware) but utterly unable to express pain, fear, basic needs, or preferences.
No One in Your Corner: Having zero family or friends means there is no personal advocate checking to see if you are comfortable, clean, or receiving adequate physical therapy. You are entirely at the mercy of shift workers and overworked state employees.
Treated as an Unwanted Liability: The sex offender label creates an immediate systemic rejection. Private nursing homes will flatly decline admission, leaving you stranded in a sterile hospital room for months—often referred to in medical systems as an “unfunded, un-placeable discharge problem.”
Public Ward Status: When a state guardian takes over, decisions about where you live, what medical care you receive, and how you spend the rest of your life are reduced to state-funded caseload management, strictly limited by whichever facility has an open Medicaid bed willing to take on the legal liability.
Total Stripping of Autonomy: You are simultaneously stripped of physical capability, legal agency, social connection, and public sympathy.
It is one of the starkest examples of falling into a complete institutional dead zone where medical fragility meets the absolute bottom of social isolation.