• The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) announced on March 26 that it would stop enforcing a provision in the voter-approved Jessica’s Law that prohibits all registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park. The LA Times reported that the department said it would no longer impose the blanket restrictions outlined in the law, emphasizing that high-risk sex offenders and those whose crimes involved children under 14 will still be prohibited from living within a half-mile of a school. Jessica’s law, passed nine years ago, has made it difficult for some sex offenders to find places to live. The Times reported that a department report found that the number of homeless sex offenders statewide increased by about 24 times in the three years after Jessica’s Law took effect, making it hard for parole officers to keep track of them. On March 2, the California Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the constintutional rights of parolees living in San Diego County, who argued that the limitations made it impossible to find housing. Enforcement of the residency restriction “has imposed harsh and severe restrictions and disabilities on the affected parolees’ liberty and privacy rights, however limited, while producing conditions that hamper, rather than foster, efforts to monitor, supervise, and rehabilitate those persons,” Justice Marvin Baxter said in the court’s ruling, according a San Francisco Chronicle article. Baxter also said that the restriction imposed by the law, therefore, doesn’t accompish the law’s intent, which is a “legitmate goal of protecting children from sexual predators.” Department of Corrections spokesperson Luis Patino told the Times that while the court’s ruling may be specific to San Diego County, the rational isn’t. “After reviewing the court’s analysis, the state attorney general’s office advised CDCR that applying the blanket mandatory residency restrictions of Jessica’s Law would be found to be unconstitutional in every county,” Patino said.
This article appears in Apr 2-9, 2015.