Fall survival, movements, and habitat use of American woodcock in ...

664 HUGHES AND BURCHFIELDDownloaded by [Northern Illinois University] at 20:01 22 February 2013number of all child sex offenders (Mustaine et al., 2006b), containing roughly 30percent of the 2,025 offenders in our sample. With just 30 percent of all livingspace left open to accommodate this many of the city’s child sex offender population,it is no surprise that disadvantaged neighborhoods were found to havecomparatively high rates of “violators” and “violations,” as well as lower meandistances between child sex offenders and parks, schools, and daycares.Together, these findings suggest that the physical structure of communitiesresults in unintended consequences of sex offender residence restrictions.Although disadvantaged neighborhoods have no shortage of parks, schools, anddaycares, and in this sense do not contradict environmental justice standards(see also Mladenka, 1980), 23 because they tend to be relatively small andencompass a disproportionate share of prohibited sites, the 500-foot rule has amuch greater impact on available residential space for child sex offenders inthese neighborhoods than is the case in affluent neighborhoods. The data alsoindicate, however, that despite legal proscriptions, registered child sex offenderscontinue—more than seven years after the first residence restrictions andnearly three years after the most recent—to be concentrated in disadvantagedneighborhoods and in relatively close proximity to prohibited sites. Thus, ratherthan keeping child sex offenders from living near children, our findings suggestthat residence restrictions in Chicago do little more than superimpose yetanother legal barrier to prisoner reentry, and a further burden on the veryneighborhoods in which many of these offenders, like the vast majority ofprisoners reentering society, have no choice but to live.Among the limitations of this study, reliance on data from a single city isperhaps the most serious. While Chicago’s 500-foot distance requirement isamong the least restrictive in the country, quite different findings may beobtained elsewhere. This is precisely why further research concerning theenvironmental relationships here examined is needed. Future research shouldalso attend to the full range of sites protected by law. Although there is limitedevidence to suggest a geographic link between sex offenders and their victims,our inability to locate victim residence data may be a significant shortcoming.Another potential problem concerns errors in the data. Other studies havefound that information from state sex offender registries often is inaccurate andincomplete (Hughes & Kadleck, 2008; Levenson & Cotter, 2005a; Tewksbury,2002, 2005, 2006), and we cannot be sure of the level of error contained withinthe shapefiles and daycare data used here, despite multiple checks and correctionsof the data. However, the high rates of geocoding accuracy suggest thatthe total amount of error in these data does not pose a serious threat to thereliability of our findings.Finally, our data do not permit direct assessment of the effects of residencerestrictions on sex offenders and communities. Because we were not able tofollow child sex offenders over time or distinguish adequately between those23. Note that our analyses cannot speak to environmental justice arguments that focus more on thequality and cultural specificity of built environments than on basic access (see Frumkin, 2005).