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decrease employment opportunities for offenders and increase their transience and <br />homelessness. These unintended consequences reduce the number of offenders accurately <br />tracked by local law enforcement agencies. The research findings were anecdotally supported <br />by conversations with local and State law enforcement officials. <br />For more detailed discussions of this topic, please see the articles and the sources cited in the <br />quarterly bulletin Geography and Public Safety, Vol. 2, Issue 1, May 2009, and listed at: <br />http://www.olP. usdoi.oov/nii/maps/gos-bulletin-v2i 1 .odf. <br />Residency restrictions also face constitutional challenges relating to the right to privacy, the right <br />to intrastate travel, substantive due process and other rights. The outcome of such challenges <br />is uncertain in California. In /n re E.J. (2010) 47 Cal.4th 1258, the California Supreme Court <br />suggested a residency restriction must be narrowly tailored to further the government interest of <br />protecting children from sex offenders. The Court remanded the petitioners' constitutional <br />claims to the trial court for evidentiary hearings concerning, among other things, the supply of <br />available housing for each sex offender in their respective community. If a residency restriction <br />makes a substantial portion of a community off-limits to sex offenders., it may be difficult to <br />sustain its constitutionality. <br />Meanwhile, the OCDA was waiting for the enactment of Chelsea's Law, which contained the <br />language of the County Ordinance. <br />Chelsea's Law -Amended <br />The language in the drafted sex offender ordinance is adapted from proposed language in <br />Chelsea's Law and from Penal Code 626.81, which prohibits sex registrants from entering <br />school grounds without written permission. Until recently, Chelsea's Law (AB 1844) would have <br />added as Penal Code 647.9 much of the language set forth in the County Ordinance. <br />On July 15, 2010, Chelsea's Law was amended to delete the originally proposed language as <br />Penal Code 647.9. The bill was signed into Law on Sept. 8, 20'10. Instead, the bill added section <br />3053.8 to the Penal Code. That section precludes Penal Code 290 registrants from entering <br />parks where children gather without express permission, but only applies the restriction to <br />parolees who served prison time for certain sexual offenses in which one or more of the victims <br />was under 14 years of age. Thus, the "park restriction" in Chelsea's Law does not apply to sex <br />registrants who have been discharged from parole. Some of these sex registrants are subject to <br />lifetime parole and some are be subject to parole for 20 years, depending upon the particular <br />crime committed. <br />LEGAL ISSUES EXPLORED: <br />Child Safety Zones -Constitutionality <br />A court will examine each law to determine whether it is narrowly tailored to the government <br />interest. Child safety zone laws appear easier to defend than residency restrictions. Safety <br />zone Taws are more narrowly tailored fo furthering the interest of protecting children by keeping <br />sex offenders away from areas in which children congregate. <br />The more broadly a restriction sweeps, the more likely a court will find it is not narrowly tailored. <br />The more tailored a law appears to protect children from sex offenders, while still permitting <br />legitimate activities by the sex offenders, the more likely it will survive a constitutional challenge. <br />50A-6