Sex Offender Residency Restrictions

• Author: Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12076
• Published date: 01 February 2014
• Date: 01 February 2014

POLICY ESSAY

SEX OFFENDER RESIDENCE

RESTRICTIONS

Sex Offender Residency Restrictions

Successful Integration or Exclusion?

Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine

University of Central Florida

Few criminal offenders garner more fear and loathing than sex offenders. Images in

the media of children killed at the hands of repeat and violent sexual predators fuels

the efforts of lawmakers to create new restrictions and strengthen already existing

constraints to keep our children safe and prevent these offenders from roaming freely (Leon,

2011). As a result, policy intended to manage this population is riddled with emotion and

politics as lawmakers quickly develop law after law (usually named after tragic victims)

often to the point of ignoring relevant empirical evidence or consideration of any collateral

consequences.

Although sex offender policy is not new (Tewksbury, 2002), in the last 20 years, sex

offenders have seen their lives become significantly more transparent and controlled. This

recent explosion of federal legislation began in 1994 with the passage of the Jacob Wetterling

Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, which required

states to track sex offenders’ places of residence annually for 10 years after their release into

the community (and quarterly for the rest of their lives if they were violent). It continued

in 1996 with the passage of Megan’s Law, which provided for the public dissemination

of information from states’ sex offender registries, and The Pam Lychner Sex Offender

Tracking and Identification Act, which requires the Attorney General to establish a national

database so that the FBI can track certain sex offenders, among other provisions. In 1997,

the federal government improved the Jacob Wetterling Act by tightening the guidelines and

circumstances for sex offender registration, directing states to participate in the national sex

offender registry, and to ensureoffenders who moved, worked, or were educated in different

states register in all of them. In 2000, sex offenders who were attending colleges/universities

were required to make their presence and residence known, and these institutions of higher

Direct correspondence to Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine, Department of Sociology, University of Central Florida,

400 Central Florida Blvd, Howard Phillips Hall, Room 403, Orlando, FL 32816–1360 (e-mail: libby@ucf.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12076 C2014 American Society of Criminology 169

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 13 rIssue 1