Methods to support policy evaluation of sex offender laws

Tony Grubesic and Alan Murray

Papers in Regional Science, 2010, vol. 89, issue 3, 669-684

Abstract: Abstract The effective management of convicted sex offenders continues to challenge local law enforcement agencies and public safety officials. While recently enacted legislation at the federal level seeks to increase the monitoring and tracking of sex offenders, legislation at the state and local levels seeks to limit the residential options of convicted sex offenders through various geographic constraints. An issue that arises, however, is the extent to which some communities and/or neighbourhoods are exposed to a disproportionately high number of offenders, potentially placing vulnerable populations at risk. The purpose of this paper is to outline spatial optimization approaches to assess and benchmark spatial risk and the geographic distribution of sex offenders within a community. Results suggest that these approaches are useful decision support tools for crafting and evaluating sex offender residency policies. Resumen La gestión efectiva de criminales sexuales convictos continúa siendo un reto para las fuerzas públicas locales y sus oficiales. Aunque la legislación promulgada recientemente a nivel federal busca incrementar el monitoreo y seguimiento de los criminales sexuales, la legislación de carácter local y estatal busca limitar las opciones residenciales para los criminales sexuales convictos mediante diferentes restricciones geográficas. Un tema que surge, sin embargo, es el alcance de la exposición de ciertas comunidades y/o vecindarios a un número de criminales desproporcionadamente alto, poniendo potencialmente en riesgo a poblaciones vulnerables. El propósito de este artículo es esbozar enfoques de optimización espacial para evaluar y establecer una cota de referencia sobre el riesgo espacial y la distribución geográfica de criminales sexuales dentro de una comunidad. Los resultados sugieren que estos enfoques son herramientas de toma de decisiones útiles para formular y evaluar las políticas residenciales para criminales sexuales.

Date: 2010
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https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1435-5957.2009.00270.x

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:presci:v:89:y:2010:i:3:p:669-684

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