Depends on where you are coming from...

I heard something about Washington, D.C. Because it is not a state, the rules are different. Does anyone know anything about that?

They may not be a state but they treat their city like it is one, it is also crazy expensive to live within the city limits. I have friends that live and work in the area and they tell me that it isn't an area that an RSO really wants to go... Most of the Eastern Seaboard isn't friendly to RSOs and have some of the worst laws and residency restrictions there are.

I've been researching this very question in recent weeks. Here's a little of what I gleaned from the internet.

Kansas has no residency restrictions, but their requirements for registrants are stiff. Google "Kansas residency restrictions," which should being up a hit for the DOC website. They have a page that goes into great detail on why they DON'T have residency restrictions. Someone in Kansas has a brain.

Colorado has no residency restrictions either, but they have the lifetime registration act of 1998 that keeps SOs in prison in.definitely, while they wait for required treatment that's underfunded and understaffed. Colorado also has a reputation for being one of the worst states for being on parole.

North Carolina has had a reputation for having the highest prison population of any state.

I also checked on Wyoming and New Mexico. They have both recently stiffened their SO laws.

With laws changing so fast all the time, I don't think any state is going to be comfortable for SOs. I've concluded that, for me, the state my son is already in is where I need to be.

I live in Missouri, but in two weeks, I'm relocating to Colorado. I intend to become a familiar face in the state capitol, so legislators can see "up close and personal" what they're doing to innocent people with their laws.

I wonder if NC ranks above WI, I thought I saw recently that WI had the highest incarceration rate in the country or maybe they were third... but they were up there...

MN isn't a bad state, they only have tier 3 listed on a public registry, although don't get civilly committed cause they don't let anyone out. but they have adjusted their laws as Patty Wetterling is from there and realized the folly of the way things have become and now advocates against the registry.

We're aiming for Minnesota. Only Tier 3 offenders are public, and there are no state-wide restrictions on sex offenders. Some towns/cities have them, but Minneapolis/St. Paul and Rochester (the two areas we looked at) don't. Minnesota also, from what I can tell, is pretty good about things like discouraging employment discrimination against people with criminal records. We found that many Minnesota employers note outright that they don't do background checks. A friend of mine is involved with an organization there, the Second Chance Coalition, that advocates on behalf of those with felony records (not just sex offenses) and helps people find access to housing and employment. It also has the second lowest incarceration rate in the nation.

A lot of it, I think, depends on your specific offense and, as wisconsinrsol noted, where you are coming from. We've been looking into this a lot lately, and have found that there's a number of states that have lifetime registration but will allow Level 1 and Level 2 offenders the opportunity to be off the registry entirely if they go 10 years without offending and a judge approves. So those states look harsh on paper, but if you have committed a single non-violent offense, you may be able to get off the registry entirely.

And, remember that community notification and the registry itself are different. At this point, we really don't care if he is on the registry. Having to go in once or twice a year is annoying and unjust, but it's not really a huge impact on our lives. Being on a public registry is, especially one available online (some states will provide people with a list of Tier II offenders if they request it, but I'm assuming that most people just look at the online registry and are done, so even that would be better than what we're dealing with now ). States have very different polices about who is or isn't on their public registry, and it's different than you'd assume. We are pretty sure, from what we recently read, that in Tennessee (a place we would NEVER have thought we could consider) he'd definitely not be on the website and could petition to be off entirely next year. Oregon is also pretty good.

Although, the other thing to check into is how the state treats offenders from other states. If my husband had committed his offense in Minnesota, he would have been on the private registry for 10 years or not have had to register at all (although, I'm pretty sure they don't do these sting operations, so it would have been moot anyway). But, when somebody moves from another state, they are on for the length of time they were required to register in the state they are coming from. So, he'd have to be on the private Minnesota registry for 25 years, as far as we can tell, but they'd level him themselves, and he wouldn't be public. It's weird. Other states don't follow what the original state did, and just do their own assessment entirely. We are pretty sure that, in NY, CT, and NJ, he'd only be on a private registry and off or eligible to be off in 10 years.

Do not move to Michigan. Michigan is horrible.

I realize that's not very helpful. I'm going to start another thread about this, if that's okay.

One of the biggest problems for SOs when they decide to relocate is that, since all of these laws and regulations regarding the sex offender registry are ruled a civil regulatory scheme in nature, and not punitive, they are not considered ex post facto laws; therefore, they can be applied retroactively.

So an SO might move say to Oklahoma today, and tomorrow another law will be passed, which will put all SOs under the same umbrella, even the new registrants.

This is not always true with the residency restriction laws, as many of the older SOs are grandfathered in, but not all states do that.

In many states, an SO not only has to deal with the state regulations but all the city ordinances that deal with sex offenders.

For most registrants, I do not know how you can determine what the laws will be after the next legislative session.

rewdiazepam

We used to live in Kansas ... don't move there. The print that you are a SO on your driver's license so any time anyone needs to see it, library, grocery store, video rental ... they know. Also, they tried to pass a law where if you are a SO, you had to have pink license plates. That got turned down but they didn't stop. You pay every time you register too. The number of times you register in a year depends on your level but my husband had to register four times a year. We had to pay every time he registered.

We live in Central Nebraska now. It's not so bad. Free registration, no limits on where you can live, no fliers to neighbors or employers. The police are okay too. The new sheriff in our town stinks and carted my husband in and gave him a misdemeanor for being two days late on registering but he was just elected and pretty much everyone in the community thought he was a jerk for doing it. If you live in a town like Kearney, NE, it will probably be better job wise because Broken Bow is really small and until you make a good name for yourself, no one wants to chance you.

I will NEVER move back to Kansas.

I live in Oklahoma. I can tell you for a fact that you do not want to move to Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, or Florida.

You can research the states I mentioned above, but trust me, there are much better states for sex offenders to live. Missouri and Kansas used to be decent, but no more.

Most of the states within the Bible Belt are just toxic to sex offenders.
You need to look at more progressive states, perhaps those out farther out west. I heard Utah is not too bad, but check it out. I think Nathan is from Utah; he could fill you in more.

rewdiazepam

Awife, thanks so much for sharing about Kansas and Nebraska. I almost moved to Kansas recently, thinking it would be a good state for my SO son. Now, I'm sooooooo glad I decided not to.

I think Missouri has a bill they are trying to pass right now that would make things significantly better for SOs. So things could change there.

And put Michigan on the bad list. We've had several really crappy rulings in the last few years, establishing "school safety zones" (which they are trying to now extend to day care centers as well) and automatically denying custody to SOs in custody disputes. Unless you were convicted as a juvenile, you are going to register for either 25 years or life, have your pictures on the public registry during that time, and there is absolutely no process for appealing to get off, no matter how long you go without committing another offense.

I will say, Detroit has, for us, been fine. The Detroit police don't seem to care that much about the registry, and we've had no trouble with neighbors. Honestly, I assume it's because it's a black city and, in general, African-Americans are going to be less hysterical about crime stuff and less quick to judge a neighbor with a felony record or even care if they have one. And, white people in the city tend to feel the same way. We didn't have even a comment or question from anybody for seven years, until we started getting an influx of suburbanites into our neighborhood, but even they ended up being fine about things. I've said it before, but you could not pay me enough money to move to a suburb again. I think big cities or rural areas are probably best for SOs, especially those on a public registry, no matter what state you are in.

utah is another great place to live there is no restrictions and you can live a normal life here and do what normal people do like go to the park school activities all the stuff normal people do and when it comes to registering it's twice a year depending on your offense some is more then that and you pay $125 on your birth year $100 state $25 county depending on where you live but yes utah is a pretty good state also if you have any questions you can contact vicki hart @vickiha21@gmail.com and chris connett at ok2tryagain@yahoo.com casey is the new director for UTRSOL and vicki is the former director of the UTRSOL so both of them are good to get a hold of

No problem :) Does anyone know what life in Arizona is like for a RSO? We were thinking about moving there so my husband could go to grad school. I want to make sure that it's not crazy up tight or against RSOs.

I would pass on AZ. It has lifetime Registration and when you move AZ has a door to door notification which is not a fun welcome to the neighborhood if you are a level 2 or level 3. The cities determine your level and there is no rational reason to their determination from a very bias checklist. Level 2 is probably the preferred level because you end up on the registry.

I live in Utah, and Nathan is right...
If he is looking at Grad school, Utah has several University's.
Utah, Pac 12.(U of U) SLC.
Utah State University.(USU)Logan
Utah Valley University.(UVU)Orem
Southern Utah University.(SUU)Cedar City.
If he is a masochist, there is always BYU.. Provo..(I have a 'Calvin' sticker on my truck, shall we say, "Filling up the Y"?
There are also many State colleges.