WI: City Rethinks Residency Restrictions
Sometimes, even local governments begin to recognize that there is a difference between protecting public safety and imposing restrictions that make it unnecessarily difficult for people to rebuild their lives.
According to the Herald Times Reporter, Two Rivers, Wisconsin, has been considering changes to its sex offender residency ordinance. The proposed changes would replace the city’s existing residency provisions with a 1,000-foot buffer around designated locations, including schools, day care facilities, public libraries, parks, playgrounds, and places of worship.
At first glance, a 1,000-foot restriction might not sound particularly progressive. But the important question is what it replaces. It was 3,000 feet.
When residency restrictions become so expansive that people cannot find lawful housing, they can undermine the very stability that helps people reintegrate into society. A person who cannot secure a home faces additional obstacles to maintaining employment, supporting a family, accessing treatment, and establishing the stable life that communities should want people to lead.
Restrictions should be evaluated on evidence of their effectiveness, not simply on how restrictive they appear. Public safety is a legitimate concern, but a policy that makes life more difficult for an entire category of people is not automatically an effective public safety policy.
If local governments in Wisconsin can reconsider whether sweeping residency restrictions are necessary, effective, and proportionate, perhaps more communities will be willing to ask the same questions.
The goal should be fewer victims and safer communities – not simply more restrictions.
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I figure if legislators really think these kinds of restrictions are effective, then they should write a statute that it is a complete defense against all future sex charges if the registrant is fully registry compliant. If they balk at that (and they will), that should be taken as acknowledgement that registry restrictions have absolutely nothing to do with public safety.
And I repeat my repeatedly made though often ignored point that even in the rare occasions that registrants commit another actual sex crime, they are always registry compliant. And I’d bet that if they aren’t, the violation had nothing to do with the new crime.
What is so difficult to understand about the absurdity of Florida’s sex-offender residency restrictions?
A registered sex offender may, subject to certain restrictions, legally be near a school, park, or daycare center during the day, when children are actually present. Yet that same person may be prohibited from sleeping in their own home nearby at night, when those facilities are closed and empty.
**Exactly whom are we protecting from someone who is asleep in their own bed?**
If the objective is protecting children, shouldn’t the law focus on potentially dangerous behavior rather than the location of someone’s bedroom?
Florida even has a **Property Owner Bill of Rights (Florida Statute §70.002)**, recognizing the fundamental rights to acquire, possess, use, and enjoy property.
https://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0000-0099/0070/Sections/0070.002.html
Of course, property rights are not absolute. But neither should they be disregarded simply because someone is on a registry, without considering whether the restrictions actually accomplish their stated purpose.
**If a person’s presence near a school is not inherently dangerous during the day, how does sleeping in a nearby home become a threat at midnight?**
Protecting children is unquestionably important. But laws should be based on evidence, common sense, and constitutional principles—not merely the appearance of doing something.
**At what point does protecting the public become an excuse for denying people fundamental rights without demonstrating any corresponding benefit to public safety?**
@G
And if someone is damned determined to do something, no law will stop that person anyway.
Valid point. When it comes to our case, however, a federal court can’t enjoin state officials to follow state law — that would have to go to state court. That’s from Pennhurst State Sch. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89 (1984), which held that the Eleventh Amendment prohibited the District Court from ordering state officials to conform their conduct to state law.
They just need to get rid of it or the public side. People raising kids have gotten lazy
In perspective, 3000 feet is a half mile according to Google. That would make it nearly impossible to find any place to go. Hope they make the change, or even better throw the entire ordinance out completely and let people live their lives.
Cities, municipalities, townships, and counties and parishes, et. al.; should all be required to follow state guidelines on all matters related to the registry. The registry shouldn’t exist at all, but that’s beside the point.
It is definitely better than the 3000. I still think 1000 is too much. I would like to see no restrictions. But if it must happen 250ft but no more that 500ft. Yes I’m dreaming.