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Daily Real Estate News | May 30, 2007
Localities Continue to Zone Out Sex Offenders
Alabama is among 18 states imposing residency restrictions on registered sex offenders, prohibiting them from living within 2,000 feet of a school or day care. More restrictions could be coming.
Officials in Tuscaloosa and Northport have imposed even stricter regulations, both establishing a 3,000-foot buffer zone; but whereas sex offenders in Tuscaloosa cannot live or work near schools, those in Northport cannot set foot near schools, day cares, preschools, after-school programs, or public parks.
As a result, sex offenders living within the city limits have a difficult time finding shelter that meets the requirements, which some home owners want expanded to include neighborhood pools and subdivisions with private lakes.
Research published in the Journal of Law and Health, however, has generated concerns that residency restrictions increase the chances that sex offenders will re-offend due to increased financial and emotional stress, instability, and isolation.
Another study by the National Center for Victims of Crime indicates that housing restrictions may not be necessary or even effective because most sex offenders commit crimes against relatives, family friends, or acquaintances, not complete strangers.
Homeowners, meanwhile, support residency restrictions because they preserve property values, with a 2003 study from The Appraisal Journal reporting that the presence of a violent offender within a tenth of a mile will depress a property's value by 17.4 percent; and proximity within two-tenths of a mile and three-tenths of a mile will lower property values by 10 percent and 9.3 percent, respectively. T
Source: Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News, Lydia Seabol Avant (05/29/07)
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