This Law Effectively Banishes People from New York City

Rights This Way

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The NYCLU recently filed a lawsuit challenging the misleadingly-named Sexual Assault Reform Act, or SARA. SARA is a New York law that prevents certain people required to register on the state’s sex offender registry from knowingly being within 1,000 feet of a school at any time and for any reason. It’s also been interpreted to prevent people subject to SARA restrictions from living within this 1,000-foot radius.

SARA is billed as a way to protect New Yorkers from people who could harm children. But research shows these types of geographical restrictions don’t increase public safety. And authorities have applied SARA to people who have never harmed children, and even people who have never committed a sexual offense.

In dense urban areas like New York City, where you’re almost always within 1,000 feet of a school, SARA restrictions force thousands of New Yorkers into homelessness and to the fringes of society, effectively banishing them.

We speak with Daniel Lambright, the NYCLU’s Special Counsel for Criminal Justice Litigation, M.G., one of the plaintiffs in our lawsuit, and Dr. Emily Horowitz, a sociologist who has spent nearly two decades researching and writing about sexual offense policies.

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Our press release announcing the case: https://www.nyclu.org/press-release/nyclu-challenges-law-banishing-people-convicted-of-sex-offenses

NYCLU's exclusive SARA story: https://nysfocus.com/2024/05/28/nyclu-sex-offender-registry-housing-homeless

Case materials: https://www.nyclu.org/court-cases/m-g-v-towns

NYCLU blog "Why We Must Rethink the Way We Treat People Convicted of Sex Offenses": https://www.nyclu.org/commentary/why-we-must-rethink-way-we-treat-people-convicted-sex-offenses

Research on the ineffectiveness of residency restrictions: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128712441694

About Dr. Emily Horowitz: https://www.sfc.edu/academics/faculty-directory/emily-horowitz

For more on everything we discuss in this episode, visit https://www.nyclu.org/

For transcripts and additional information on the episodes, visit nyclu.org/en/rightsthisway

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