Sex offenders out on parole often have to live in trailers(prisons) away from schools, bus stops and day care centers.
Southampton, N.Y. — Two trailers in this wealthy beach town stand as testament to an increasingly intractable problem for localities across the country: where to let sex offenders live after prison.
The cramped trailers house convicted rapists, sexual predators and child abusers, about 40 sex offenders in all. They are stuck here in large part because Suffolk County, like many jurisdictions, has in recent years passed laws that bar convicted sex offenders from living near schools, day care centers and other places with children.
The restrictions are so sweeping that it can be difficult for the offenders to find housing, leaving many homeless, officials said.
Suffolk County, on Long Island, installed the trailers, after the authorities discovered that sex offenders had crowded into cheap motel rooms, sometimes down the hall from families with children. Around the country, similar clusters of offenders have been found in campgrounds, under highway overpasses and other isolated spots.
“When you propose a law restricting sex offenders to 1,000 feet from any bus stop, that’s just not going to work,” said Laura A. Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law and the Crime Victims Center, who lives on Long Island. “You have to be reasonable.”
By law, convicted sex offenders in Suffolk County must have a permanent registered address there while on parole or probation. If they do not, they can be arrested again.
After they finish parole or probation, they can move away — though they would be subject to the sex offender registration rules wherever they reside.
The men are not forced to live in the trailers, but typically end up in them because they have nowhere else to stay and fear being arrested if they are homeless.
The other trailer is in the parking lot of a prison. A bus service financed by the county transports the men between the trailers and pickup points, including train stations, in Suffolk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/nyregion/suffolk-county-still-struggling-to-house-sex-offenders.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0