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DAN GUNDERSON: Like a lot of sex offender laws, this one started with a phone call from an angry mom.

JERRY BEHN: Then asked me if I was aware that a bonafide sexual predator with a history of abusing six-year-old little girls was living in an apartment complex overlooking a grade school playground.

DAN GUNDERSON: Iowa State Senator Jerry Behn went right to work on a law to ban sex offenders from living near schools, parks, or daycares. He wanted moms across Iowa to feel safer and to know their kids wouldn't be the victim of a sex offender. Behn admits he didn't do much research to find out if sex offender restrictions are effective.

JERRY BEHN: We all took just, frankly, took it for granted that it would have some benefit because of the number of states that had it. And so we just felt like if it was good enough for other states, and it was working, and we took it for granted, it was working or they wouldn't have kept their bills, we should go ahead and do it here.

DAN GUNDERSON: So sex offenders in Iowa were banned from living within 2,000 feet of schools, parks, and daycares. It's a law based on the myth that all sex offenders prey on random children. In reality, most sex crimes against kids are committed by a friend or a family member.

Iowa police and prosecutors soon began to see problems with the new law. Hundreds of sex offenders stopped registering with police. No one knows where they live.

Some moved to neighboring states like Minnesota. Some offenders were sleeping in their cars or at public rest areas. Corwin Richey heads the Iowa County Prosecutors Association. It's his job to push for tough crime laws. But he says restricting where sex offenders live is a good example of bad public policy.

CORWIN RITCHIE: It's ineffective. It wastes resources and has unintended consequences that may well increase the chances that an offender will reoffend just due to the instability, the going underground surrounding themselves with other offenders.

DAN GUNDERSON: Iowa prosecutors and sheriffs lobbied hard to have the residency restriction law repealed. They failed. State Senator Jerry Behn says he knows the law has driven some sex offenders underground.

He says the law probably needs to be changed. But he says he can't vote for any law that appears to give sex offenders a break because voters might not understand.

JERRY BEHN: Everybody is concerned about the postcard going into their neighborhood that said, so-and-so, your state representative or your senator is soft on sexual predators. And they had a chance to vote for this bill. And they didn't do it. Or they had a chance to be tougher on them. And they didn't do it.

DAN GUNDERSON: That's why a law many people say doesn't work stays on the books in Iowa. Corwin Ritchie with the prosecutor's association, says he argued lawmakers should repeal a law that doesn't make kids safer. But he says legislators are fixated on being tough on sex offenders.

CORWIN RITCHIE: Does that mean that they accept a public policy that simply causes hardships for sex offenders without any semblance of protecting kids? Or does being tough on sex offenders mean that they want smart public policy that improves child safety? That's really the crux of where we are at the moment with legislators.

Despite the experience in Iowa, at least, 21 other states continue to restrict where sex offenders can live. Studies in several states, including Minnesota, found no connection between where a sex offender lives and where they commit crimes. Despite that research, a bill was introduced again this year at the Minnesota legislature to limit where sex offenders can live.

It didn't become law, but similar restrictions are in place in several Minnesota cities. Nancy Sabin says such laws stay popular, despite evidence they don't work. Sabin heads the Minnesota based Jacob Wetterling foundation.

One of her jobs is educating lawmakers about laws that will protect children. She says a bad law passed in one state quickly spreads.

NANCY SABIN: I call it the MeToo law. One state or county does it. They pass it. And then it sounds good. It logically sounds good.

But it's a waste of energy and resources. My bottom line is I want to know if it's going to reduce crime. And if it's not, I don't want to put my energy in it. Please, let's use research-based proven tools that will reduce sexual harm.

DAN GUNDERSON: One response to sex offenders that's based in science is Civil Commitment. Civil Commitment is designed to identify the most dangerous sex offenders and send them to a treatment hospital after they serve their time in prison. The Minnesota Civil Commitment program is considered a model for other states.

But the man who designed the program says it's become irrelevant because of politics. Michael Farnsworth says high risk sex offenders are often very difficult to rehabilitate. But he says the Minnesota Civil Commitment program used a medical model based on science to give sex offenders a chance to prove they can change. Farnsworth left his job as head of the sex offender program in 2003 when the model program was caught in the middle of election year politics.

MICHAEL FARNSWORTH: The attorney general at the time was like, you know, I'm going to be tough on crime. The governor is soft on crime and soft on sex offenders. And the governor was declaring that he wasn't going to let any sex offenders out on his watch.

Well, the message that the patients in the program got was it doesn't matter how hard you work or whether you might recover. You're not getting out. So if you want to undermine a program, that's the best way to do it.

Get the chief executive officer of your state to tell them that, no matter how hard they work, they'll never get out. At that point, I said, I can't do this work anymore.

DAN GUNDERSON: Farnsworth says too often, sex offender management is left to what he calls the hysterics and politics of the moment. He says the debate needs to move to another level.

MICHAEL FARNSWORTH: We haven't come to that intellectually honest place about what we really want to do with this group. I mean, if you wanted to look at your best bang for your dollar, you'd simply lock anyone up who's a sex offender and not pretend that you're providing treatment. Just simply give them an indeterminate criminal sentences.

I think it's more politically palatable to say we are trying to provide active service and treatment than to say we just want to be punitive and lock people up forever. But the net effect, given the climate that we live in, is that we end up locking them up forever, but doing so at the high cost of treatment.

DAN GUNDERSON: Farnsworth says that's a decision that has consequences. He says the state spends millions on a program politicians don't trust to treat sex offenders who will never be released. Farnsworth wonders would that money be better spent on programs to treat the troubled kids who grow up to be sex offenders?

Jill Levinson says lawmakers often don't analyze the consequences of their policy decisions, especially when it comes to sex offender laws. Levinson is a Florida college professor who specializes in studying sex offender laws.

JILL LEVINSON: Many policies tend to be passed after a very heinous, high profile crime. There is a certain amount of desperation or panic. And we grasp at straws to do something that will look like it will solve the problem. Unfortunately, broad policies that are based on very unusual events probably are not going to be very effective in attacking the problem, in general.

DAN GUNDERSON: Levinson contends those laws have done little to reduce sex crimes in the past 10 to 15 years. She argues it's time to set aside emotion and focus on effective measures.

JILL LEVINSON: The idea behind research-based policy is to take what we know and use that information to inform our policies, and our treatments, and our interventions so that we're most likely to be able to create the largest effect that we can.

And I think to do otherwise is not only inefficient in terms of resources, it's unethical, really, because what it provides is a false sense of security to the public.

DAN GUNDERSON: Levinson says there are no laws that can ensure there will never be another violent, horrific sex crime. But she says acting on emotion, rather than science, wastes money that could improve public safety if it were targeted more effectively. Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio News.