IA- More proof that 2,000-foot rule fails

IA- 1-9-2009 Iowa:

Iowa lawmakers too afraid to fix the broken sex-offender residence law

Need empirical data to show that sex-offender residency laws, such as that in Iowa, doesn't work? Here it is. And it mirrors what police, sheriffs and prosecutors have been saying for years: Iowa's law doesn't work.

Three university researchers studied sex offenders in Florida and compared the rates of repeat offenses among those who reside near schools and day-care centers and those who do not. The study found that offenders living closer to schools and day-care centers did not reoffend any more often than those who lived farther away. The rates were statistically the same.

Those results look a lot like an extensive study last year by the Minnesota Department of Corrections of 224 cases in which a predator reoffended. Among those 224 cases, how many would have been deterred had there been a residency requirement (such as that in Iowa)? Zero. That's right: Not a single one.

It would be one thing if the law were only ineffective. But Iowa's bad law complicates the work of law enforcement officials, makes it more difficult for them to protect children and creates for the public a false sense of security.

Police and sheriffs deputies must spend their limited time and energy addressing housing issues and searching for offenders who have "fallen off the radar" because they are in violation of the residency restriction.

The residency requirement drastically limits where offenders can live. That leads to a greater number of transient or homeless predators. Homelessness in particular is a concern to law enforcement. A sex offender without a stable home environment is more likely to reoffend. And few lifestyles are more unstable than that of a homeless or transient person.

So, why isn't the law repealed or amended? Political cowardice. Elected officials would rather keep a bad law on the books than face election opponents' negative campaign messages that they are going "easy on sex offenders."

Include Gov. Chet Culver in that. He said "most Iowans" support the current law, and he welcomed law-enforcement officials and county attorneys to "make a compelling argument that any change to the current law would actually make it tougher on sex offenders," Culver recently told The Des Moines Register. Police and prosecutors have been doing just that, and they will try again. But just because most people not involved in the law share an opinion does not mean they are right.

Lawmakers need no more information to review the state's sex-offender laws. No one expects this law to be repealed all by itself. Lawmakers must revise this piece of the law while strengthening other areas of it. They should be more concerned about where offenders are than where they sleep. Creating safety zones where sex offenders are not allowed to enter without written permission is one solution. Couple that with serious penalties for failure to register, and the state could be much closer to having a law that actually does something.

For now, however, politicians are more concerned about re-election than genuinely protecting our children.

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