Other States

This week, headlines out of Michigan highlight yet another proposal aimed at people on the sex offender registry. This time, a sweeping ban on working in any business that “primarily serves minors”. On its face, the pitch sounds simple: keep kids safe. But beneath the rhetoric lies a familiar pattern — one that courts have already rejected, and one that

A newly introduced bill in New York, co-sponsored by Andrew Molitor, is once again pushing a familiar approach: expand the public sex offender registry. This time by including individuals already classified by the state as low risk. Under current law, New York distinguishes between risk levels for a reason. Level 1 individuals are assessed as presenting a low likelihood of

New York City covers about 302.6 square miles in total area. According to New York City government information, there are more than 1,700 parks and recreational sites in the city, there are also about 2,667 playgrounds citywide. Add to that, 2,700–2,900 K-12 schools. That’s roughly 7,167 “places where children congregate”. That’s an average of 23.68 such landmarks per square mile,

OK. If the title sounds familiar, it’s because I “borrowed” it from the landmark study by Hanson, Harris, ET AL. that was titled, “High-risk sex offenders may not be high risk forever”, but it fit here nicely. A case filed earlier this month in Oregon, M.H. v. Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision, challenges how the state retroactively classifies individuals

Under two different Illinois laws, people charged with sex offenses are subject to indefinite detention. More than 500 people are currently being held under the procedure known as civil commitment. This story examines the law that continues to hold people after they’ve served their sentences, sometimes for decades. WTTW News also looked at the law that holds people who’ve only