Some say residency restrictions lack efficacy, fairness to sex offenders

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - A Local 12 investigation is prompting a city to take action against sex offenders violating restrictions about where they can live.

The stories have revealed that there are hundreds of people on Hamilton County's sex offender registry who are violating the law by living too close to schools and relatively little is being done to stop them.

Local 12 found that even in Norwood, which has passed tougher restrictions than the state provides and where violators are aggressively pursued by the city attorney, there were still five sex offenders in violation.

Because of Local 12's reporting, the Norwood City Attorney's Office sent out letters to those five people on the sex offender registry, telling them that they must move or the city will file suit against them.

But, not everyone agrees that restricting where people on the sex offender registry live makes children safer. In fact, some say that it can make society less safe and that it treats people who have served their sentences unfairly.

“Almost 23 years ago, I had a conviction for indecent liberties with a minor, custodial, as it was my 14-year old-stepdaughter who was my victim,” Philip Kaso told Local 12 via video call from his home in West Virginia. “The offense involved touching.”

Philip Kaso was 38 when he touched his stepdaughter. He has since served five years of probation, been through counseling, and will be on the sex offender registry for the rest of his life. Along with the public shaming, the lost job opportunities, and the constant threat of vigilantism, it also restricts where he can live.

About 750,000 people are on the sex offender registry nationwide. Thirty states have restrictions on where those people can live, that includes Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana.

Local 12 has focused recent stories on Ohio's law where you can't be on the registry and live within 1,000 feet of a school or daycare.

“There’s just something wrong with the system that turns people from humans into monsters,” said Brenda Jones, Executive Director of the National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws.

She said that residency restrictions don't keep people from driving to a school. She also said that most people on the registry didn't offend against children and that most child molesters are related to their victims. Further, she cites studies that show sex offenders are less likely to re-offend than other criminals and that the housing instability caused by residency laws actually puts the public at risk.

“If not for a sex offense,” said Jones. “[Then] for petty theft, for other crimes of desperation, that if a person could have stable housing, they wouldn’t have those problems.”

Local 12 responded:

“Our prisons are full of people who have re-offended."

“Where a person lives isn't an indication of whether they will re-offend,” said Jones.

But in Norwood, where restrictions are tougher than those mandated by state law, the assistant law director said you can't measure crimes avoided.

“The best child abuse cases are the ones that never happen,” said Tim Garry, Norwood Assistant Law Director. “And you don’t know the ones that don’t happen as a result of what you’re doing.”

Philip Kaso said that if you've served your time, your debt to society should be square.

Local 12 asked him how he would feel about someone who has had sex with a child living across the street from an elementary school.

“They’ve gone through parole and probation, they’ve been supervised, and now it’s time for them to have a second chance,” said Kaso.

Philip, incidentally, has reconciled with his wife and said he now has a good relationship with the stepdaughter he illegally touched.

In West Virginia, where Philip now lives, the legislature is considering a bill that would keep sex offenders from living a half mile from any school.