A Wisconsin news station ran this report in which the reporters, politicians and their department of corrections acknowledge that the residency restrictions have backfired. Now, they are proposing a bill to roll them back
MILWAUKEE —No one wants a sex offender next door, but WISN 12 News has learned efforts to keep them out of a community may have actually brought them closer to those you love.
By law, prisons release sex offenders to the counties where they committed their crimes, but over the last decade, every one of Milwaukee County’s 19 municipalities has passed residency restrictions for newly-released sex offenders, effectively leaving them nowhere to live.
“There’s a lot of dangerous people that are placed on our streets where we can’t find them,” Milwaukee Common Council President Michael Murphy said.
Murphy opposed the city’s sex offender residency restrictions for fear they would flush sex offenders onto the streets.
Even homeless shelters can’t take in sex offenders, leaving them to seek shelter in malls, libraries, buses — places frequented by kids.
“I wouldn’t want to get on a bus anymore,” a teen said.
Murphy said it’s a matter of public safety.
“When they’re in a defined area, defined boundary, four walls, we can monitor them,” Murphy said. “When they’re living in abandoned homes, if they’re living on the street, and living in places where they’re not getting treatment, the likelihood of reoffending is much higher.”
Murphy said there are now 100 homeless sex offenders living on the streets. As prisons release others, he expects that number to hit 500 this summer.
The Department of Corrections said it keeps tabs on homeless sex offenders with GPS tracking devices. But those devices only work if they’re charged, which is a challenge if you’re homeless.
“Somebody’s going to get seriously injured and people are going to say, ‘I didn’t know this was going to happen,’” Murphy said.
Even the Department of Correction’s top official acknowledges the dangers. DOC Secretary Edward Wall wrote Murphy, “Sexual offender residency restrictions do not improve public safety but in fact compromise it.”
Murphy claimed the state has failed to act on his request to ban those residency restrictions and come up with a statewide sex offender placement plan.
“This is a disaster in the making. We need to show some leadership, and say, ‘Let’s come up with a uniform statewide standard,’ not these patchwork of ordinances throughout all these cities across the state of Wisconsin,” Murphy said.
“They say they’ve repeatedly asked for help from you and from the DOC, and they say they’ve gotten nothing,” WISN 12 News investigative reporter Colleen Henry said to Gov. Scott Walker, who said he’d support changing the law.
“Right now the Department of Corrections has to abide by the law, and as the law is set, they’re doing just that. If the law was changed, it would address the concerns that Milwaukee and a few other municipalities have,” Walker said.
State Rep. Joel Kleefisch plans to introduce a bill he said will balance community concerns with the need to house sex offenders. He said he’s gotten support from Milwaukee officials but resistance from smaller communities that worry a statewide law would water down their restrictions.
Similar bills failed in 2005, and again five years ago, but that was before a growing population of homeless predators was living on the streets.
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