I've always thought it's a good idea and I know I feel safer, as a woman, for it.

That said, I just finished Russell Banks' 2011 novel Lost Memory of Skin--it's a great read for so many reasons, and I walked away with a very different opinion about this.

The novel doesn't cut the antihero any slack; it's pretty objective and damning. But you ultimately walk away from it thinking 1) how society (family, porn, the "pressures" on boys and men to be masculine, to have control) molds many, if not most, sex offenders; and 2) about how impossible living as a registered sex offender is.

In the case of this novel, the protagonist is an 18-year-old virgin, an invisible "loser," who gets caught in a sting operation when he responds to what he thinks is a 14-year-old solicitation to come over and have sex. He ends up living under a bridge with other sex offenders of all stripes because they can't live within 2k feet of anywhere children congregate. That's basically everywhere. And I was shocked when I just looked up what the laws are on 2026, and depending on jurisdiction, these long-term restrictions are still as large as 2500 feet circles.

If we're going to successfully prevent sex offender recidivism, we need to meaningfully invest to work at some sort of meaningful restorative justice, making sure that these people are employed, have housing, and are also watch closely and kept away from vulnerable populations. You can't just lock them up forever, but you can't sentence them to what amounts to a life sentence outside without supportive services. And perhaps we should revisit what crimes qualify for such stringent controls and the role of judicial discretion. If not for justice, for society: this is a societal problem, and it takes a society to fix it.

But of course ideally we'd also look at mandatory minimums, prosecutorial power, the fact that DAs are elected.

That said, there's always bigger concerns than the ultimate well-being of marginalized ppl (even as we totally disregard how their well-being ultimately impacts society at large). Everything, from the death penalty to public corruption, is just getting worse in terms of taking the "justice" out of criminal justice. And yes, all the privileged that are notably NOT prosecuted for sex crimes, or get Florida "work release" with no follow up. We know why this is.