Pending without litigation

In 2006, Kentucky amended its residency restrictions for sex offenders.   The amendments prohibit all individuals on the Kentucky Sex Offender Registry from living within 1,000 feet of a school, day care, or park; under prior law, only those registrants on supervised release were subject to this restriction.  In addition, unlike under the law’s prior version, the 1,000 feet is measured property line to property line, not door to door.  The law applies to all registrants, regardless of the crime they committed, the length of time since the offense, or their current risk of harm.  (The amended law applies fully to registrants with no history of crimes against children.)  As a result, hundreds of individuals must leave their homes — sometimes homes that they own — and uproot their families, or live separately from their families.

Courts have not been sympathetic to the legal arguments against similar laws; as a result, we have not yet joined in any litigation challenging the amended restrictions.  Instead, the ACLU of Kentucky is working with attorneys, registrants, treatment professionals and law enforcement officials in seeking a statutory change.  We argue that there is no evidence that residency restrictions reduce the risk of re-offense and, in fact, some evidence that such restrictions increase rates of re-offense by destabilizing the lives of low-risk offenders.  We will continue to work with others seeking a law that more effectively protects the public from higher-risk offenders, while simultaneously protecting the rights of lower-risk registrants.