ABSTRACT
Banishment is one of the most ancient and basic punishments of people. While banishment has taken many forms, essentially, it is the forced removal of a person from society. While there may be a shortage of legal punishments that mirror the traditional punishment of banishment, many punishments in the United States certainly resemble this ancient practice. In the United States, perhaps the most widespread form of residency restrictions are laws meant to control the behavior of sexual offenders. While sex offenders have often been viewed as the most loathsome criminals, beginning in the mid 1990s, especially with the passage of the Jacob Wetterling Act and Megan's Law, sex offenders began to experience a wide range of regulations beyond incarceration or other more traditional punishments from the American criminal justice system. Banishment is an ancient punishment that was widely employed as an alternative to the death penalty.
