Cite as: 538 U. S. 84 (2003)
Opinion of the Court
islature intended to punish would satisfy an ex post facto challenge without further inquiry into its effects, so considerable deference must be accorded to the intent as the legislature has stated it.
The courts "must first ask whether the legislature, in establishing the penalizing mechanism, indicated either expressly or impliedly a preference for one label or the other." Hudson, supra, at 99 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the Alaska Legislature expressed the objective of the law in the statutory text itself. The legislature found that "sex offenders pose a high risk of reoffending," and identified "protecting the public from sex offenders" as the "primary governmental interest" of the law. 1994 Alaska Sess. Laws ch. 41, § 1. The legislature further determined that "release of certain information about sex offenders to public agencies and the general public will assist in protecting the public safety." Ibid. As we observed in Hendricks, where we examined an ex post facto challenge to a postincarceration confinement of sex offenders, an imposition of restrictive measures on sex offenders adjudged to be dangerous is "a legitimate nonpunitive governmental objective and has been historically so regarded." 521 U. S., at 363. In this case, as in Hendricks, "[n]othing on the face of the statute suggests that the legislature sought to create anything other than a civil . . . scheme designed to protect the public from harm." Id., at 361.
Respondents seek to cast doubt upon the nonpunitive nature of the law's declared objective by pointing out that the Alaska Constitution lists the need for protecting the public as one of the purposes of criminal administration. Brief for Respondents 23 (citing Alaska Const., Art. I, § 12). As the Court stated in Flemming v. Nestor, rejecting an ex post facto challenge to a law terminating benefits to deported aliens, where a legislative restriction "is an incident of the State's power to protect the health and safety of its citizens," it will be considered "as evidencing an intent to exercise that
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