Study Confirms High Sex Offender Concentrations, Mpls. Council Demands Solutions

This story is only interesting for one of the last sentences, which is extremely important

 

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Frustrations are mounting on an issue Minneapolis city leaders say is burdening nearly a dozen neighborhoods.

A draft report, more than two years in the making, has found that certain areas of North and South Minneapolis have 790 predatory sex offenders clustered together — numbers far higher than anywhere else in Minnesota.

But the hopes of some city council members that a solution would be found soon were dashed on Wednesday.

Inside a home in Near North, a family from Liberia is planting roots in Minneapolis. There are no men in this household. Just women and children.

“They can’t go outside to play. They can’t go to the park over there to play. I’ve got to be there,” said Rebecca Debar, the martriarch of the family.

That’s because Debar said living there means living with fear.

“Somebody can trap you at nighttime when you’re coming home from work — there’s nobody around,” Debar said.

The family lives in one of five zip codes in Minneapolis that, combined, have the highest number of predatory sex offenders in all of Minnesota: 55404, 55405, 55411, 55412, and 55430, comprising the Jordan, Near North, Webber-Camden, and Phillips neighborhoods. In those areas, one in every 140 people is a predatory sex offender.

“I represent an area where there is a huge concentration, and it’s just unacceptable,” said Blong Yang, chair of the Public Safety Committee, during its meeting on Wednesday.

The Minneapolis city council demanded a thorough analysis of the issue back in 2013. More than two years later, the study presented on Wednesday confirmed many sex offenders live in clusters in Minneapolis, because those neighborhoods are cheap, and they’re often frozen out of others. It also found more sex offenders typically mean nearby home values can drop by up to 12 percent.

Still, council members were less than impressed.

“You have confirmed what we knew was going on,” said council president Barb Johnson.

“I feel like it’s the same old, same old. We’re confirming everything that we know already, but what are we going to do about it?” Yang asked.

Yang insisted that the burden of housing sex offenders must be shared by other parts of the city and state.

“If it’s not fair for you to be with Level III sex offenders, or sex offenders in general in your area, how is it fair for my community to have the bulk of them?” Yang asked.

For others, it’s less about fairness, and more about personal safety.

“Please, please. I’m begging the city council. They should do something about it,” Debar said.

It is such a difficult issue because no one wants a sex offender moving in across the street. But the report also looked at how often predatory offenders commit crimes after they register, and found the majority are not as dangerous as the public believes.

Yang said he’d like the city to look at engaging the state legislature on the issue, in an effort to find a comprehensive solution to the problem.

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