Opinion Likely to Impact Cities’ Policies
Residency restrictions that prohibit sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park are unconstitutional, the California Supreme Court ruled this week. The court in In re Taylor held that the blanket restriction infringes on the rights of sex offenders in San Diego County by limiting their access to housing, increasing the incidence of homelessness and depriving them of access to services, such as psychological treatment and drug and alcohol counseling that are available to all parolees.
The court affirmed an appellate court decision relying on data that indicated more than one-third of sex offenders in San Diego County are forced to register as transients in the wake of the 2006 passage of Jessica’s Law, a referendum that instituted the residency restrictions. That data also indicated that sex offenders were effectively banned from about 97 percent of available housing in the County, with much of the remaining housing not available due to low vacancy rates, high rent, or the unwillingness of landlords to rent to sex offenders. The court restricted its decision to San Diego County since the appellants argued the law was unconstitutional as it applied to them, rather than attacking the law as unconstitutional on its face. But the ruling is likely to have statewide impact as other challenges arise to blanket residency restrictions. Despite overturning the blanket restriction, the court affirmed the authority of state corrections officers to impose residency restrictions on parolees on a case-by-case basis.
The residency restrictions not only infringe on the liberty and privacy interests of the parolees, the court found, but they also bear no rational relationship to advancing the stated goal of the protecting children from sexual predators. The restrictions, as written, apply to all sex offenders, regardless of whether their crimes were against children or if there is any indication they would pose a threat to children, the court stated. Further, the restrictions make it more difficult to monitor, supervise and rehabilitate offenders, frustrating efforts to reintegrate them into society and creating a risk of increased recidivism rates, the court added.
Though the scope of the decision is narrow for the moment, its effects are likely to spread statewide as further suits are filed and research is done into the results of these residency restrictions. While authority still exists to create similar restrictions on a case-by-case basis, state corrections officers should be mindful of this potential change in policy and how it may affect parolees on their caseloads.
The case did not specifically address the authority of cities to impose residency restrictions on sex offenders; however, this decision is likely to impact city policy going forward. Though cities have the right to impose residency restrictions under a separate section of Jessica’s Law, similar challenges exist to such restrictions. The California Court of Appeal held last year, in People v. Nguyen, that cities could not restrict the movement of sex offenders nor require them to obtain permission to enter certain areas of a city, like parks or recreation facilities. Any community imposing residency restrictions should consider the scope and breadth of its policies to ensure that it is not effectively banning sex offenders from the jurisdiction entirely, and to narrow policies intended to protect children so that they apply only to sex offenders whose offenses were committed against minors.
