Surprise, surprise, Jessica’s law ended up driving sex offenders into rural areas (h/t polizeroes). Whocoodanode?

Just as with the controversy over the Yolo reentry center in Madison, the unintended but completely foreseen (yes, we told you so) effect of Jessica’s law is to externalize the social problem of crime to rural areas who for various reasons do not have the political power to refuse. That conservative rural voters repeatedly vote for the ToughOnCrime(tm) approach to social problems is ironic, but does not obviate the fact that they are, in essence, being forced to take care of urban areas’ problems (or, to be more accurate, disproportionately so).  

As the Guardian article points out, the relocation of sexual offenders to rural areas (the only places where housing can be found more than 2,000 feet from either parks or schools) compounds the initial problem by putting sexual offenders in communities that are already unable to adequately police themselves, doubly so in the current depression with collapsing exurban housing value and the corresponding property tax revenues, trebly so given the state government’s GOP ransom-driven decision to steal from government so as to avoid raising taxes on the rich, oil companies, and corporations. Making the definition of “sex offender” unduly broad – lumping flashers in with the real baddies – only makes it harder for police to monitor those who are actual dangers to the community, in a manner starkly reminiscent of the drug war’s idiot strategy of throwing essentially harmless pot smokers in with violent felons.

There is a better way to do this. Californians need to understand that they cannot simply make Bad People go away, and urbanites should not foist off their problems on politically weak rural areas. The conservative, law and order ToughOnCrime approach to our deeper social problems has been an abject failure at all levels. It is time to totally rethink our criminal justice system. We need to be throwing a lot less nonviolent people in jail, we need to devote a lot more resources – in both relative and absolute terms – towards training, rehabilitation, treatment  and counseling so that criminals don’t just get mired permanently in the cycle of crime and prison, and we need to make sure that all communities actually deal with the external costs of the criminals they prosecute, instead of passing them off on communities elsewhere.

originally at surf putah