Evaluation of Sex Offender Residency Restriction Functioning in Town, County, and City-Wide Jurisdictions

• NCJ Number: 226364
• Journal: Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 20 Issue: 1 Dated: March 2009 Pages: 44-61
• Author(s): Michael Chajewski; Cynthia Calkins Mercado
• Date Published: March 2009
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research); Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Using the New Jersey sex offender Internet registry, data on sex offenders (n=268) were used in mapping the differential impact of sex offender residency restrictions on housing availability for sex offenders in selected town, county, and citywide jurisdictions in New Jersey that do not currently have residency restrictions in place.

Abstract

Findings show that 31.25 percent of registered sex offenders in rural areas, 37.5 percent in county areas, and 64.80 percent in suburban areas would be required to move under residency restrictions that prevent them from living within a radius of 1,000 feet of a school and a day-care center. Since social services and other community resources tend to be located in more urban locations, residency restrictions could impact offender access to and use of these support services. Offenders may have longer or costlier travel routes to reach mental health, substance-use, or probation and parole offices, as well as places of employment and supportive social networks. Further, there was no indication that the sex offenders who had victimized children (the primary targets of the legislation) were more likely than other types of sex offenders to choose housing near a school or day-care center, suggesting that a hypothesized threat does not exist in the real world. This is the first study to use mapping analyses in examining the differential effects of alternative distance residency restrictions across town, county, and citywide areas. The study determined how many offenders were living within 1,000 or 2,500 feet of a school, how much residential space would remain available after enacting residency restrictions, and how far buffer zones extended into adjacent territories. It also determined how far sex offenders lived from schools compared to other randomly selected community members, as well as whether there were differences across subtypes of sex offenders regarding these distances. 5 tables, 6 figures, and 18 references