A Stitch in Haste

This development really shouldn't be surprising to anyone:

On the shaded streets of Coram and Gordon Heights [in Long Island, New York], 39 convicted sex offenders live within a half-square-mile area. Fifteen reside on one block alone, and 11 properties house multiple offenders.
...
It's no accident that so many sex offenders ended up in this small area, according to experts, politicians and offenders themselves. Newsday's analysis shows that this cluster came about for a variety of reasons, including the low cost of rentals, their location more than a quarter-mile from schools or playgrounds, which is required by law, and the willingness of some landlords to accept sex offenders.

It's quite simple really: If you red-line sex offenders out of one neighborhood, then they will simply move to another neighborhood. If you red-line most of a city, then the registrants will form clusters in those few areas that somehow aren't proscribed.

Now, if you want to rehabilitate a criminal, isn't the best way to achieve that by holding out hope of an alternative life -- a mainstream life? Don't you want to try to coax offenders into wanting to be part of the (law-abiding) community? How does banishing them to a low-income, high-crime ghetto accomplish that?

Or is it instead that rehabilitation is not a goal? Could it be that advocates of registries and red-lining simply want banishment for the sake of banishment -- the relentless quest to make it "somebody else's problem"?

Consider the next proposed step to quash even these outposts of legal residency:

[L]egislation introduced last week by Suffolk Legis. Kate Browning (WFP-Shirley) would make placement of offenders more difficult by banning county agencies that provide services to sex offenders from putting more than one offender in the same house.

If I'm not mistaken, "WFP" means "Working Families Party," a socialist fringe outfit based here in the New York area. Workers of the world unite -- to kick out the sex offenders!

The fundamental and obvious question with respect to red-lining is both critical and unanswered: Where do you, um, draw the line? Obviously we can't red-line the entire country. Does it not violate due process to red-line an entire city? Given that most sex offenders are not violent and do not pose a recidivist threat (contrary to the hysteria of those who insist otherwise), do registries and red-lining even satisfy rational basis review, especially when the red-lining includes objective absurdities such as "bus stops" and "skating rinks"?

We see it over and over and over: When it comes to the Others Who Are Ruining America™, too much is never enough, no restriction is too extreme, no inequity or injustice need be addressed. Even for the socialists!

(Via CrimProf.)