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Sex Offender Residential Mobility and Relegation: The Collateral Consequences Continue

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Abstract

Prior research (see American Journal of Criminal Justice 30 (2), 177–192, 2006a) examined the residential locations and mobility of registered sex offenders and showed a common movement into increasingly socially disorganized neighborhoods after 5 years of registration. The present study examines whether or not this downward spiral continues for these sex offenders 10 years later. We examined 212 registrants from the original study and found that since their original arrest 38 % of the registrants have moved into a more socially disorganized neighborhood than their previous address. The only variable found to influence the likelihood of move to a more socially disorganized neighborhood is race, with minority sex offenders most affected. The findings suggest that the collateral consequences of sex offender policies have long-term deleterious effects on housing for sex offenders.

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Notes

  1. We obtained the RSOs’ current 2015 addresses to place them in their associated Block Group. But we use data from 2013 to describe these Block Groups.

  2. To test whether or not the 37 offenders we lost due to the change in unit of analysis are significantly different than those who remained in the analysis, we compared the means between their individual characteristics (age, race, registration length, and registration requirement—life or not). There were no significant differences between the offenders in the analysis and the offenders who were dropped. Unfortunately we have no information on the offenders who moved or were no longer on the SOR, so that group of offenders (N = 20) were not in the differences in means analysis.

  3. To clarify, for the present study we compare the offender’s previous (at time of arrest) address to their current address with the unit of analysis being block group. In the previous study we reference, we compared the offender’s previous (at time of arrest) address to their (then) current address with the unit of analysis being census track. We only compare the findings of these 2 studies theoretically, not statistically, so the change in unit of analysis is not substantive.

  4. Since there were only 2 women in the group there are nowhere near enough cases for variation, we excluded them and look only at males.

  5. However, these values have not been standardized for inflation, housing bubbles, or economic recession.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Richard Tewksbury & Shawn Rolfe

  2. University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA

    Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine

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  1. Richard Tewksbury
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  2. Elizabeth Ehrhardt Mustaine
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  3. Shawn Rolfe
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Correspondence to Richard Tewksbury.

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Tewksbury, R., Mustaine, E.E. & Rolfe, S. Sex Offender Residential Mobility and Relegation: The Collateral Consequences Continue. Am J Crim Just 41, 852–866 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-016-9341-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-016-9341-y

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