Child Safety Zone law

I have to agree with the majority on the Public Safety Committee (a standing Committee of the County Board), who this week voted to recommend that Otsego County's Child Safety Zone law be rescinded. It seems that the law – which forbids registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of any school, school bus stop, day care center, youth center, swimming pool, or any “public or commercial recreational facility clearly designed to attract children” - is probably unconstitutional. In fact, a number of other similar laws, passed in other NY counties, have been challenged in court; the county lost every time, and no county has appealed, suggesting that their claim to constitutionality was not strong.

Regardless of whether it it's constitutional or not, it doesn't make a lot of sense, except on an emotional level. There's no research anywhere suggesting that this kind of law has any effect on recidivism; we can't prove that it keeps any children safe. Anyone can travel a thousand feet – or, for that matter, ten miles – from where they live to where children congregate.

What they can't do, given the law as it now stands, is live in most Otsego County housing. A thousand feet is nearly a quarter mile, and if you draw a circle around every school, park, daycare and (especially) school bus stop, there's not much left. Especially in small towns where housing clusters around the school. And in a rural county, where school buses stop at nearly every house, even options outside of town are limited. Just think about the geography of District 11, here in the First and Second Wards: try and picture the map, and find a house or apartment more than 1,000 feet from a park or a school, or Bugbee, or the SUCO playing fields.

Given the nature of the offense, it is appropriate for some sex offenders to incur further restrictions on their liberty after their prison sentence is over; our public safety officials assure us that this is done with energy and effectiveness. But to make it almost impossible for any of them to find adequate, stable housing seems to assume that none of them will become productive, contributing citizens, and thus can be marginalized and dismissed.

This debate brings to mind the capital punishment issue: in both cases, a draconian punishment is applied not because it will change behavior or promote anyone's safety, but because it will be emotionally satisfying to a large portions of the citizenry This aspect has its value – but it also has its consequences.