Policy Implications of Residence Restrictions on Sex Offender Housing in Upstate NY

• NCJ Number: 234477
• Journal: Criminology & Public Policy Volume: 10 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2001 Pages: 351-389
• Author(s): Kelly M. Socia
• Date Published: May 2011
• Length: 39 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2010-IJ-CX-0004
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Award: Residence Restriction Legislation and Sex Offender Residential Locations in New York

Annotation

This study examined the residence restriction policy in Upstate New York for sex offender housing options.

Abstract

Only a handful of studies have evaluated how residence restrictions would affect sex offender housing options, and even fewer have compared different residence restrictions to one another. This study analyzed how different types of statewide residence restrictions would affect the housing options of convicted sex offenders in the Upstate New York region. Combinations of five buffer zone sizes (500 - 2,500 feet) and three scopes of restricted locations resulted in comparisons between fifteen unique residence restriction policies. Neighborhoods (i.e., census block groups) were first separated into three groups based on the percentage of restricted housing parcels they contained under each residence restriction policy (i.e., less than 33 percent of restricted housing parcels for the least restricted group, between 33 and 66 percent for the moderately restricted group, and more than 66 percent for the most restricted group). Measures of housing density, housing availability and housing affordability, and social disorganization were compared between these groups using ANOVA. Findings indicate that the least restricted neighborhoods were consistently the least dense and the least socially disorganized. However, the size and scope of a restriction influenced conclusions about the availability and affordability of housing and the overall number of neighborhoods offering substantial unrestricted housing to sex offenders. Additionally, comparing the extremely unrestricted and extremely restricted neighborhoods (i.e., neighborhoods containing less than 10 percent and more than 90 percent of restricted housing parcels, respectively) yielded similar conclusions to the comparisons of the least and most restricted neighborhoods. (Published Abstract)