Tightening the sex-offender noose

Another California city is setting standards well beyond the voter-approved "Jessica's Law" that bans registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of schools and parks. The new statewide law cannot be applied to people who lived within the zone before voters approved Proposition 83 last November, but it restricts new residents from moving in and requires lifetime GPS tracking of sex offenders.

The city council in San Marcos has approved a 300-foot "safety net" around public and private schools, parks and school bus stops. The ban would apply regardless of whether children are present, the San Diego Union-Trib reports today. Santee, La Mesa, National City and unincorporated San Diego County also have approved 300-foot bans, while Chula Vista's zone is 500 feet from where children gather.

The city-by-city, county-by-county regulations are another case study in California's weird ballot initiative process. Proposition 83 allowed local communities to set their own standards, but it also made an explicit statement approved overwhelmingly by voters statewide: The zone should be 2,000 feet. The map, for example, shows every county except San Francisco supported Jessica's Law.

But would voters have approved Prop. 83 if the zone had been only 300 feet for the entire state? California now is creating a patchwork of laws for sex offenders--which is likely to push them to rural communities that are doing nothing to tweak Prop. 83.