By TODD DVORAK
Associated Press Writer
IOWA CITY, Iowa- Registered sex offenders who live within 2,000 feet of a school or day-care center must move within two weeks to comply with state law.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pratt set the Sept. 1 deadline this week after legal challenges to the law delayed its enforcement. The Legislature passed the residency law in 2002, and other states, cities and towns across the nation have created similar restrictions since then.
Local authorities have been preparing to enforce the law for weeks and say offenders living inside restricted areas should begin looking for a new home.
“I’m not looking to make any arrests on September 1, but if there are people out there we know about to be in violation of the law, they will get notice,” Scott County Attorney Bill Davis said Thursday. “And they will need to be gone in a reasonable amount of time or they will be arrested.”
Officials say it’s unclear how many of Iowa’s nearly 6,000 registered sex offenders don’t meet the law’s requirements. Those who have lived in the same residence since July 2002 are not required to move.
The Iowa Civil Liberties Union, challenging the law on behalf of a group of sex offenders, argued that it punished them beyond their sentence and made it impossible to find housing, in effect creating modern-day penal colonies.
Pratt struck down the law as violating due process, but the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his ruling. A pair of other appeals also were rejected, and the Iowa Supreme Court has also upheld the law as a tool to protect the public rather than punish offenders.