WI: A statewide residency restriction would solve problems

The City of Brookfield, Wisconsin amended its Sex Offender Residency Restriction (SORR) after another city’s SORR was declared unconstitutional. Others are implementing their own SORR.

These decisions have nothing to do with public safety! They are made for political reasons.

Brookfield’s city attorney said the change would “protect the city from future lawsuits.” So they loosened it. The city of Millwaukee, which had no SORR, adopted one so that city won’t, “became a hot spot for sex offenders, said Adam Stephens, Milwaukee deputy city attorney.

Rather than focusing on political reasons, the State should focus on empirical evidence – which universally finds that SORRs are ineffective.

There has been discussion about enacting a state-wide SORR to prevent certain cities to have a disproportionate number of registrants, but as Curt Witynski, deputy director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, said to Wisconsin Public Radio, topic “is like touching a live wire for legislators and local elected officials.”