Safety costs include tax-funded expenditures, such as tracking sex offenders. These safety costs ultimately harm society (in the form of a higher tax bill).

A low estimate of the cost of dealing with sex offenders is $179,000 annually, Jones said. That number includes salaries for the assistant prosecutor, who handles all cases involving children, the sheriff’s deputies who monitor offenders once they leave prison, mailing costs for notifications that go out to neighbors when a sex offender moves into town and costs to hunt down offenders who have skipped the state and violated reporting requirements….

The across the board changes, with reporting requirements for even the least severe of sex crimes, have also permeated the court system.  Chris Pagan, a defense attorney who has represented people accused of sex crimes, says the law is clogging the docket.  “It is certainly a lot more difficult to settle sex cases now than it was before,” he said.  “People who are truly innocent, the fact that there would be a registration requirement is a deal stopper most of the time.”