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As of August 2006, at least 21 states and over 400 local governments had adopted sex offender residency restriction laws and ordinances, respectively, according to the California Research Bureau in an August 2006 report entitled The Impact of Residency Restrictions on Sex Offenders and Correctional Management Practices: A Literature Review. These laws are modeled after nuisance codes, creating sex offender-free zones like drug-free zones. They typically prohibit sex offenders from living, and sometimes working or loitering, within a specified distance of designated places where children congregate. Like all states, Connecticut requires sex offenders to register. And like most states, police must notify residents when a sex offender moves or returns to their neighborhoods. But, the state has not enacted a law restricting sex offenders' residency. This could change soon, however. A bill, sHB 5503, currently before the General Assembly requires the Risk Assessment Board to use the risk assessment scale it develops to determine the sex offenders who should be prohibited from living within 1,000 feet of the property comprising an elementary or secondary school or a licensed center- or home-based child day care facility.

Sexual violence is a serious social problem and policy-makers continue to wrestle with how to best address the public's concerns about sex offenders. Recent initiatives have included social policies that are designed to prevent sexual abuse by restricting where convicted sex offenders can live, often called "sex offender zoning laws," or "exclusionary zones." As these social policies become more popular, lawmakers and citizens should question whether such policies are evidence-based in their development and implementation, and whether such policies are cost-efficient and effective in reaching their stated goals.

Overborne by a mob mentality for justice, officials at every level of government are enacting laws that effectively exile convicted sex offenders from their midst with little contemplation as to the appropriateness or constitutionality of their actions. These laws fundamentally alter the liberties and freedom of convicted sex offenders to satisfy the ignorant fear of the masses. As a result, residence and employment restrictions which in theory are to protect society, in practice only exacerbate the perceived recidivism problem. When such laws are passed and the political process is broken, it is necessary for the judicial branch to step forward and protect those who are politically impotent.

During the summer of 2006, the Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives (DPCA) conducted a survey of County Probation Departments to assess sex offender management practices. Among the resulting recommendations was that DPCA draft and disseminate a series of research bulletins on issues related to sex offender management so that probation officers in the field would have the latest information. This bulletin represents the first in a series expected to be completed by the end of 2007 that will bring together issues in managing sex offenders on probation, including assessment, re-sentence investigation, treatment, supervision strategies to reduce risk, the use of technology such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and forensic computer searches.

Recidivism Rates Compared, 2005 - 2007, is the first comprehensive report published by the Indiana Department of Correction that details the recidivism rates of offenders released from incarceration in Indiana. This report presents recidivism rates for offenders released from the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction for the time period 2002 through 2004. This report defines recidivism as a return to incarceration in the Indiana Department of Correction within three years of the offenders release date. For example, offenders released in calendar year 2004, who returned to prison for either a new conviction or technical violation during 2004, 2005, 2006, or 2007, but within three years of release, would be counted in the recidivism rate for 2007.

Civil commitment of mentally disordered persons in the United States was generally limited to persons who were clinically and judicially determined to have psychotic disorders, until 2 U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 1997 and 2002 sanctioned the commitment of nonpsychotic sex offenders who had completed their prison sentences. Such commitments are based on diagnoses of paraphilias and personality disorders - often using the miscellaneous "not otherwise specified" designations for these diagnostic categories. These diagnoses have poor conceptual validity and low interrater reliability. Accordingly, civil commitments that are based on diagnoses of such nonpsychotic disorders have a weak foundation.

During the summer of 2006, the Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives (DPCA) conducted a survey of County Probation Departments to assess sex offender management practices. Among the resulting recommendations was that DPCA draft and disseminate a series of research bulletins on issues related to sex offender management so that probation officers in the field would have the latest information.

Sex offenders make up 6.5 percent of parolees, and have a lower recidivism rate than other offenders. Five percent of released sex offenders who recidivate are convicted of a sex offense, 8.6 percent commit an unrelated crime and 86 percent return to prison on a parole violation. San Francisco has one of the highest recidivism rates in the state-some 78.3 percent go back to prison within three years of release-according to a report released today by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The study tracked about 108,000 inmates released from state prisons between 2005 and 2006 over the course of three years. Overall, the state recidivism rate, which has long been among the highest in the country, clocks in at 67.5 percent, which is not a significant change from previous statewide tallies.

An Ohio prison intake report on sex offenders imprisoned in 1992 revealed that 2.2 percent of child molesters were strangers to their victims, and 89 percent of perpetrators had never been convicted before. In their 1993 textbook, The Juvenile Sex Offender, Howard Barbaree and colleagues estimated that teenagers perpetrated 20 percent of all rapes and half of all child molestations. A 2006 report for the Ohio Sentencing Commission said 93 percent of molestation victims were well known to their perpetrators, over half the offenders victimized close relatives, and 93 percent of molesters had never been arrested for a previous sex crime. A December 2009 study by David Finkelhor of UNH and colleagues for the US Justice Department analyzed national sex crime data from 2004. That year the estimated population of underage sex offenders was 89,000, and they had committed 35.8 percent of all sex crimes reported to police. One in eight juvenile sex offenders was under age 12. The study said that between 85 and 95 percent of young offenders would never face another sex charge.