As many of you may be aware, the Council is being asked to repeal our ordinance on sex offenders.
Recently, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that local residency requirements for sex offenders are unconstitutional, in part because the state has a registry. As a result, the local ordinance is unenforceable, and opens the City up to litigation with almost no hope of successfully defending or appealing a decision. Many other states are taking similar actions.
As I researched this issue, to determine whether or not a residency ordinance is unconstitutional, I learned that sex offender registries and residency requirements, while sound good, actually do not make us safer.
Some of the questions that should be asked when creating new laws, programs or policies, should be, “Will the law accomplish its objective in an effective manner?”, “Will it work?; or is it a “feel good law?”
High recidivism rates shows that the threat of jail time alone is not sufficient to curb sex crimes. Pedophiles have a fifty-two percent recidivism rate; and rapists have a thirty-nine percent recidivism rate.
Sex-offender registries do little to actually keep the sex offenders away from potential victims.
Residency restrictions, present states with the difficult burden of proving the law is not an ex post facto punishment.
The first question is what was the intent of the legislature in implementing a law?
If the intent of the legislature is punitive, or inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime, when committed, then that law will be deemed unconstitutional.
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Sex-offender residency restrictions that apply to post-conviction offenders are unconstitutional as violations of the Ex Post Facto and substantive Due Process Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
Maybe we should consider longer sentences with some measurable rehabilitation in order for offenders to be released. There are no constitutional grounds to prohibit people from living where they want to, unless they have been convicted of a crime and their new address is a penal institution.
City Councilor Dan Allie
