8-22-2009 New Hampshire:
Dover has until the end of the month to appeal a recent court ruling.
The Dover District Court has thrown out the city’s ordinance that restricts where sex offenders are allowed to live.
The case hinged on Dover’s failure to prove that its policy actually improved child safety.
But supporters say- while the effectiveness of residency restrictions may be somewhat limited- the ordinance is a key tool.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Dan Gorenstein reports.
Back in 2003 Matt Mayberry was campaigning for City Council.
There it is folks, election on the backs of sex offenders!
He kept hearing Dover residents complain that sex offenders could live too close to where children congregate.
That didn’t make sense to Mayberry.
TAPE: they’ve created a drug free zone. They’ve created a firearm free zone around schools....that was the thought process. You would not put a beer in front of an alcoholic. Why would you allow someone convicted of sexual crimes against children to live across the street from hundreds of children.
There is the problem with their reasoning, they are basing it on a MYTH, a false belief that everyone previously convicted of a sex crime will lust after and attack a child, if seen!
If there was any truth to that we would not have registries because all of them would be perpetually in prison.
Also, it would be nice to know how mans gun offenses there were in school zones before and after that law, the same for drug offenses; but no one has done such studies, wonder why.
Mayberry started to work with the city’s police chief on a way to limit where sex offenders could live.
And in the fall of 2006, the Dover City Councilors unanimously adopted a provision that barred any registered sex offender from living within 2500 ft., nearly half a mile, of a school or day-care center.
Four communities, Tilton, Boscawen, Franklin and Northfield soon followed suit.
Last year the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union and New Hampshire Legal Assistance sued Dover.
Lawyers argued that the ordinance violated a person’s equal protection rights under the state Constitution.
TAPE: Dover based its public policy on an illusion.
That’s Barbara Keshen, of the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union.
Keshen says if the government takes away someone’s rights in the name of a greater public good then the government’s got to prove the policy works.
But she says, Dover officials couldn’t do that.
TAPE: there’s no evidence, there’s no statistics, there’s no studies, there’s no reports that actually back that up.
Actually, the city did present statistics.
They just didn’t persuade the Dover District Court.
It didn’t help that prosecution for sex crimes against children went up in Dover the year after the city adopted its ordinance.
The court ruled against Dover saying it didn’t produce any evidence the restrictions protected minors.
That opinion is hardly unique.
The state of Iowa relaxed a similar law this year after law enforcement complained it drove offenders underground.
In 2008, Manchester and Derry shot down proposed ordinances after police raised similar concerns.
TAPE: I would say 9 out of 10 peer reviewed studies find that they generally don’t work.
Bridgewater State College Professor Richard Wright teaches Criminal Justice.
Wright says researchers have discovered a series of unintended consequences that come with these sorts of policies.
TAPE: residency restrictions really do undermine an offenders capacity to re-enter society and not offend. You are taking away their family. You are taking away a stable form of housing....you may be affecting their opportunities for employment.
Despite the well-documented drawbacks, ordinances restricting where sex offenders can live are popular.
Newsweek magazine reports that 30 states and hundreds of cities and counties have embraced such laws.
Franklin Police Chief David Goldstein for one thinks the policy helps make his city safer.
The chief admits he’s got no empirical evidence.
But he thinks the restrictions mean fewer sex offenders will call Franklin home.
TAPE: let’s make up a couple of numbers for just a moment. Let’s say there are 10 registered sex offenders who want to move to Franklin. And of the 10, 2...decide no I am not going to hassle myself...then we are that much safer...we are not going to worry about them.....so part of the secret to the success of Franklin’s local ordinance is that other communities don’t have the ordinance and that sex offenders will go to those communities, not Franklin’s....well....I don’t wish that on any other city or town, that’s not the point of good law enforcement...or good lawmaking, but it is a reality. And yes that is what will happen in a significant number of the cases.
In some places, the result of such laws are sex offender ghettos.
For example, in Miami more than 70 offenders with no place else to go, live under a causeway in makeshift tents.
Ultimately, Professor Wright argues if the goal is to reduce sex crimes against children, forcing people away from society only puts children in greater jeopardy.
TAPE: it’s far easier to point the finger, to blame and say these sex offenders are horrible people, evil animals....they are not fathers, brothers, sisters, uncles, boyfriends. It’s far easier to make the problem this abstraction that can be solved by demonizing people and isolating them.
What gets lost, says Wright is that society too quickly treats all offenders alike.
But statistics show80- 90% of sexual assaults against kids are done by someone kids know.
That means the likelihood that some stranger is stalking random children from their apartment across the street from a playground is rare.
Not rare enough for Dover’s Matt Mayberry.
TAPE: from bringing forth this ordinance people came forward to me and talked about how they were molested...and they knew the perpetrator, but how it just destroyed their lives. And I thought that...if that 10% if I can help keep them out of the crosshairs just a little bit longer, than this is worth it.
The city of Dover has until the end of the month to decide if they will appeal their case to the state Supreme Court.
Officials have asked attorneys to evaluate their chances of winning.
If the case doesn’t make it to the state’s highest court, the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union says it will look for another case in an effort to win a ruling that outlaws the practice. ..Source.. for NHPR News, I’m DG.
1 comment:
HIP-HIP HOORAY ACLU!!
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