Sex offenders: Can’t be around other people and can’t be around each other

A bill introduced by Alabama State Rep Mike Ball would make it illegal for sex offenders to live near each other.  It is already illegal for sex offenders to live within 2000 feet of schools or day care centers.  So, in effect, sex offenders are very likely to congregate simply because existing laws limit where they can live.  An extreme example of this effect was the Julia Tuttle Causeway sex offender colony in Miami, also known as “Bookville” after Ron Book who wrote the ordinance that barred sex offenders from living within 2500 feet of a school.  At its peak more than 100 sex offenders lived in a shanty town under the bridge.

From the Wikipedia article:

In November 2011, the Miami Herald reported on the fate of the former Julia Tuttle Causeway colony, which former residents nicknamed “Bookville”. Analysts studying the colony unanimously agreed on two relevant issues: the inability to find a stable home for offenders increased the risk that they would re-offend, and the close proximity of offenders to schools or parks does not increase the possibility that past offenders will re-offend.

Grandstanding like this is common because sex offenders are fair game.  No one is going to come to their rescue, so law makers can go nuts writing new laws to get their names into the headlines.  Sex Hysteria!, covered the ludicrous restrictions placed on sex offenders by parasitic politicians who, completely devoid of any common sense, never gave the unintended consequences the slightest consideration.  And, once enacted, no politician is going to recommend backing off for fear of being labelled as soft on rapists.

Essentially, even after a sex offender serves his prison time, he is condemned to a life sentence of persecution and public humiliation.  He is permanently denied any chance at redeeming himself and returning to anything resembling an ordinary life.  Even murderers aren’t treated that harshly.  Even if you’re not opposed to the harsh treatment, one can only wonder if subjecting people who live among us to that degree of misery, alienation, and hopelessness is going to make us safer.