Residence Restrictions Are Ineffective, Inefficient, and Inadequate: So Now What?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12071
• Published date: 01 February 2014
• Author: Kelly M. Socia
• Date: 01 February 2014

POLICY ESSAY

SEX OFFENDER RESIDENCE

RESTRICTIONS

Residence Restrictions Are Ineffective,

Inefficient, and Inadequate: So Now What?

Kelly M. Socia

University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Huebner et al.’s (2014, this issue) study of the effects of state-level residence re-

strictions in Michigan and Missouri finds little to suggest that these laws are

having their intended effect of reducing the sexual victimization of children.1

Indeed, Huebner et al (2014) note that their findings “caution against the widespread,

homogenous implementation of residence restrictions,” and instead they recommend indi-

vidualized programming and risk-centered models when dealing with released sex offenders.

This study is unique, and important, because of its focus on residence restriction laws’ ef-

fects on individual-level criminological outcomes, its examination of two states, and the

advanced methods used in the analysis.

However,although this study is an excellent contribution to the aggregate literature on

residence restrictions and brings a new perspective to how these policies are being studied,

the findings are not surprising. These policies have been studied for years as they spread

across the country, first as state-level laws and then as local-level ordinances. As a result,

criminal justice scholars have been skeptical of the utility of residence restrictions for some

time because study after study has suggested that these policies are ineffective and may be

resulting in collateral consequences for both registered sex offenders (RSOs) and community

members.

This building tide of these research findings has led prior Criminology & Public Policy

policy essays to have titles such as “Eliminate Residency Restrictions for Sex Offend-

ers” (Walker, 2007) and “Place a Moratorium on the Passage of Sex Offender Residence

The author would like to thank Christopher P. Dum and Professor Andrew J. Harris for their helpful

comments concerning this article. Direct correspondence to Kelly M. Socia, School of Criminology and Justice

Studies, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, 113 Wilder Street, HSSB 4th Floor, Lowell, MA 01854 (e-mail:

Kelly_Socia@uml.edu).

1. I prefer the term “residence restrictions,” and that is the phrase used by Huebner et al. (2014), but these

policies have been referred to also as “residency restrictions,” “buffer laws,” and “child safety zones.”

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12071 C2014 American Society of Criminology 179

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 13 rIssue 1