what happens when a molester moves in next door to his victim?

A man molested his niece when she was a little girl and 12 years later when he was released from prison, he moved in with his mother next door to the victim.

“I was pretty outraged, but I have channeled that rage into a more positive outlet, which, for me, is sharing my story and empowering other victims of sexual assault,” [the victim] says, adding her parents researched state laws in the hopes of blocking the move, only to learn they had no legal recourse.

I am no psychologist but this sounds healthy. This young woman's story can help other families to recognize what may be happening in their own homes. Some former victims may not be comfortable telling their story and we must respect that.

We must also respect the discomfort caused when her uncle moved in next door. When we remember that child sexual abuse most frequently happens within a trusted family circle, we can see that a great number of victims must have to deal with encountering their former abuser.

A family--and any counselors--would do well to help the victims learn to deal with those encounters and to help the former abuser understand how to respect the victim's boundaries.

“I was coming back from class and he was out mowing in my grandmother’s backyard, and it made me uneasy just being home,” Dyer tells PEOPLE. “I go to school in Edmond so I’m only home half the time, and I think twice before going home now. I have a very close family, so it’s hard for me to not constantly be with them.”

Her unease is easy to understand.

It is also easy for legislators to jump on board the outrage train.

[...the victim] and her family have been meeting with State Rep. Kyle Hilbert, who tells PEOPLE he is committed to introducing fresh legislation to bar offenders from living within a certain distance of their victims.

Hilbert's legislation will not be engineered narrowly to this particular victim and offender. It will apply across the board to all offenders and victims, even those who want to find a way to reconcile, and even those who simply want the offender to have a place to live.

Again, most child sexual abuse happens inside families, or inside the circle of trusted friends. There are many families who see the value in keeping the family whole and not burdening the victim with a trail of broken family relationships.

Dyer says she no longer wants anything to do with her grandmother because of her decisions; when she was in high school, her uncle was released and lived with her grandmother until he violated probation and “went right back” to prison.

“She is supposed to protect me, she is supposed to take care of me,” Dyer says, “so for her to turn on me like this, she obviously doesn’t care about me.”

This victim has already (understandably) lost a relationship with her uncle and now her grandmother.

The criminal justice system should try to disrupt families as little as possible and yet Hilbert's legislation will cause more disruption for families and victims who have made choices different from Dyer's family.

Child victims will go through several phases of understanding what happened to them, depending on their ages. A small child with no understanding of sex may know only that the molester did something wrong and has to go away.

As the child approaches adolescence and begins to experience his or her own sexuality, understanding of the crime will shift. The new understanding will answer some questions for the child and will almost certainly bring up new questions.

When the victim has children, the understanding of the crime may change again...and yet again when her children get into trouble and need her protection. At that point, the victim may understand her grandmother's actions much differently.

Legislators need to see that what a victim feels today will change over time. The legislation will almost certainly not account for those changes.

Each family will deal with victims and offenders in its own way. Some family members will let their own outrage frighten the child; some will make every effort to let the child deal with events at her own level of understanding. Protecting the child from the adult understanding of what happens is essential to some, though some are unable to accomplish that.

Legislation that tries to solve a complicated situation like this will almost surely make things worse for some families. When a family wants the offender to come back home and live a law-abiding life, finding a residence for the offender is the first priority. In some cities, it is nearly impossible for an offender to find a place to live. If his mother's house is where he can live, why should legislation get in the way of that?

Legislators are the ones who create residence restrictions. Without those restrictions, the offender has a better chance of living away from family that doesn't want him around.

That problem cannot be solved by creating even more residence restrictions. Complicating the lives of offenders and their families makes it more likely that former offenders will break laws and be returned to prison, even if the law broken is not another sex offense.

Legislators need to back off and let families make their own way.