EDITORIAL
When we first heard about the movement to prevent anyone ever convicted of a sex crime from moving into certain neighborhoods in Miami Beach, Fla., we didn’t give the matter a whole lot of thought.
It was one of those stories that popped up on CNN or talk radio from time to time, but mostly as a curiosity. What Miami Beach chose to do about pedophiles who had done their time and were now free to rejoin society didn’t strike us as a particularly urgent matter of public policy.
When the movement spread to a few other towns in Florida, and then to the Florida Legislature, we got a little more interested. Here was a whole state that was contemplating stripping a fundamental right of citizenship the right to live wherever one pleases from an entire class of citizens. Granted, the state was Florida, where various laws denying citizens their fundamental rights are regularly introduced and sometimes even passed before being struck down by the more temperate courts.
Next thing we knew, the movement had made it to New Jersey, where the little Monmouth County town of Keansburg proposed to set up a 1,000-foot "buffer zone" around every school, park and playground that would be declared pedophile-free. A Monmouth County legislator then announced plans to extend this policy statewide.
Now, Hamilton Township has climbed on the bandwagon. And the governing body of Mercer County’s largest municipality aims to go little Keansburg one better, taking formal steps to prohibit convicted sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of a school, park or playground.
(Actually, the Hamilton and Keansburg proposals probably accomplish the same objective. There are 24 public schools, more than 30 parks and an untold number of playgrounds in Hamilton’s 40 square miles, making it virtually impossible to find a home that isn’t within 2,500 feet of at least one of the above. Keansburg’s 1,000-foot buffer undoubtedly serves the same purpose in that town’s 1.07 square miles.)
Hamilton Mayor Gary Gilmore makes no bones about the intent of this initiative. "Hamilton is a community that protects our children," the mayor declared. "This ordinance will give us an important new weapon to protect them even more."
"Weapon" seems an appropriate choice of words here. What the ordinance does, in effect, is kill any chance that someone who once committed a sex crime will ever live in Hamilton which, of course, is precisely what Hamilton wants. It’s also what Keansburg wants. And, if that Monmouth legislator has his way, it’s what all of New Jersey will want. And it’s presumably what each of these jurisdictions will get, at least until the courts have an opportunity to weigh in on the matter, and promptly declare any and all such efforts unconstitutional.
Some brave souls have denounced these efforts as impractical, even counter-productive. They argue that, since released sex offenders are now required by law to register when they move into a community, banning them from moving into designated pedophile-free zones which may well cover an entire town will simply drive them underground, making the community even more dangerous.
There may be some merit to this argument, but we are frankly less troubled by the practical implications than we are by the principle here. What the supporters of these pedophile-free zones are effectively saying is: Once a pedophile, always a pedophile. This whole movement to isolate sex offenders is built on the premise that they cannot be rehabilitated, that they will always be a threat to the community regardless of whether they have paid their debt to society.
Well, if this really is the case, then sex offenders should remain locked away for life. If not, they should be allowed to return to society. Trying to have it both ways locking them up first, then making it impossible for them to live anywhere after their release strikes us as cruel, unusual and excessive punishment. We have little doubt the courts will agree.

