Sex Offender Community Notification and Its Impact on Neighborhood Life

This paper is based on research that both quantitatively and qualitatively examines the effects of sex offender community notification on neighborhood life—specifically on fear of crime, community morale, and the ability of residents and business owners to preserve and restore their neighborhood. The literature hypothesizes that neighborhoods are stable social entities that react to destabilizing events by finding ways to resist unwanted change and bounce back to a semblance of their former selves. This resiliency factor may be problematic in those neighborhoods beset by a variety of social problems. Data for this paper were derived from an in-person interview survey with households and businesses located within an area officially notified about a convicted sex offender living there. The findings suggest that the state practice of targeting an already fragile neighborhood for sex offender placement, while a blow to the neighborhood, may not be of such magnitude as to weaken its ability to recover.