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California loosens sex offender law

March 29, 2015

sexoffenderCalifornia officials announced Thursday that the state will no longer impose the portion of Jessica’s Law that forbids all sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park. Instead, only those offenders whose crimes involved children under 14 and some high-risk offenders will be prohibited from living near schools and parks. [LATimes]

The shift comes nine years after California voters approved the controversial law, which has made it difficult for some sex offenders to find a place to live.

On March 2, nine years after California voters approved Megan’s Law, the California Supreme Court ruled that Jessica’s Law violated the constitutional rights of parolees living in San Diego County. Primarily because the limitations made it impossible for sex-offenders to obtain housing. As a result, many were living on the streets making them difficult to track.

“While the court’s ruling is specific to San Diego County, its rationale is not,” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Luis Patino said Thursday. “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.”

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I guess if some pervert wants to molest a child said pervert will do so weather it’s a ten block drive to the school or a two block walk. I think the sentences should be longer…I think the jail terms should be so long that the question of where they will live once they get out needs not to even be asked.


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Not all sex offenders are pedophiles… it includes people who may have been on the losing end of a subjective sexual assault case, or people convicted of statutory rape because they had sex with a 17 year old (even though they were only a year or two older). People don’t bother reading though, it’s more fun to just knee jerk emotional responses out I guess.


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Yawn… Both of which makes up a fraction of convictions. Do some research before posting your “knee jerk” emotional response straw argument.


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mkaney-As with so many laws, this one isn’t designed to snare the 19 yr old who had sex with a 16 yr old. Its designed to keep lifetime sexual deviates from raping our little kids. Keeping all rapists away from schools and parks WAS a superb idea. Kinda like keeping a fat guy away from a bakery I suppose.


By this insane theory we should now see San Diego’s homeless population shrink as the rapists find housing, right? Wrong I’m afraid.


Join us on the “high road” once in awhile bud!


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I am with you here mkaney although I may be the only one. The rest need to carefully reread the first paragraph of the article. The proposed changes are not about cutting the true pedophiles or most violent rapists any slack. They are about being more realistic for those whose “sex crimes” are less serious the statuatory rapists, the rapists who violate women under the influence while also under the influence themselves and the “indecent exposure” criminals whose victims are not children.


The term “sex crimes” is too broad (in some places it includes “public urination”) to treat all those labeled with that term as irreconcilable criminals and that is what the proposed changes in the law address. They still maintain the right to restrict real pedophiles and violent rapists as was previously the case. (And I don’t think anyone objects to that.) The ones they are trying to ease off on are those who made stupid if serious mistakes and have paid a reasonable price for them. The housing restrictions on such people leaves them incapable of reintegration into society and sets the scene for making them turn to criminal activity for survival.


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