An Associated Press article uses the town of Gilroy in southern Santa Clara County as a test case of the worries that rural areas of the state have about Proposition 83, which would essentially force most sex offenders to look for places to live that have less political clout than cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, which are able to close off most of their land area to sex offenders because of the large number of schools and parks within their boundaries. Some of the concerns of Gilroy and other rural communities about Proposition 83 include a relative lack of social services resources for sex offenders and the risk that law enforcement resources will be stretched thin by a mandate to track and monitor a notoriously difficult-to-track population.

According to a draft report obtained by the Associated Press from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Division of Adult Parole Operations, Proposition 83, if it passes, will require the relocation of 2400 sex offenders in Los Angeles County alone. A recent Los Angeles Times article summarized Iowa’s experience with a similar law that was passed in 2002 and upheld by the state supreme court in 2005. Since that law went into effect, and since the greater Des Moines area passed ordinances that are even more restirictive than the state law, 98% of the greater Des Moines area is off-limits to residency for sex offenders.

It’s worth noting that the Desert Sun, a newspaper that serves Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, where a lot of sex offenders could theoretically be compelled to move, supports Proposition 83 in an editorial published today. Similarly, the Napa Valley Register recommended a “yes” vote on October 17, saying that any misgivings about the measure are “overshadowed by the damage done by those who commit felony sexual offenses.”

On the other hand, the Merced Sun-Star on October 25 recommended a “no” vote, editorializing that:

In other states, [laws like Proposition 83] have backfired, pushing sex offenders into sparsely populated rural and suburban neighborhoods where law enforcement is thin and where counseling, psychiatric and other social services that many mentally disordered offenders need are in short supply or nonexistent. The same is likely to happen in California.

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