By Sam Stanton, Sacramento Bee

State prison officials said Thursday that they are loosening some restrictions on where thousands of California sex offenders may live in response to a state Supreme Court ruling earlier this month.

The new policy essentially means that state officials will review the cases of all 6,000 sex-offender parolees to determine whether their criminal histories involved children or other sex crimes. Those with offenses involving children will remain under current restrictions created by the Jessica’s Law measure passed by voters in 2006 that prevent them from living within about a half mile of schools, parks and other places where children may be present.

But others – such as offenders convicted of rape of an adult or statutory rape – who have shown no propensity for crimes against children may be allowed to live without such restrictions, a move officials hope will reduce the number of homeless sex offenders in California.

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