WI: New Petition Wants Exclusion Zones Extended to 1500 feet.
An online petition is circulating in Chippewa Falls that would change important city ordinances towards sex offenders. If approved, it would increase the distance a sex offender can be around areas where children gather.
Right now the city ordinance states a sex offender must not loiter within 66 ft. of playgrounds, parks, pools or day care centers. The new petition is asking the city to modify the distance to 1,500 ft.
Tarin Rud is a Chippewa Falls resident who created the petition. She started it because of safety concerns within the community.
“It’s not about a person in specific, this is about a city ordinance that just doesn’t feel right. 66 ft.is not very far,” she explained.
[FAC COMMENT: Doesn’t “feel right”? Is that the social science we are going by?]
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That is correct they push those so they can further their careers in politics.
And as usual, most of these ordinances cannot be retro-actively applied, however, I have seen that also not being the case. I guess cities just love spending their funds on lawsuits. Some small cities that make these rules, if a lawsuit is filed, they could be in deep doo-doo financially if they lose.
Wasting taxpayers dollars for so called “Keeping people safe” is BS.
F.A.C has constantly stated that registered persons have some of the lowest re-offense stats, yet tons of funding is thrown around just to make our lives miserable and hope to make us move and go away.
And sadly, few judges in Florida are giving any of us relief even after decades of no offenses.
It’s long past time for public servants to gather the empirical research, confront the myths, and educate their voters—especially when the evidence directly contradicts the ordinances they continue to pass. The data are not ambiguous. They are not new. And they are not friendly to the fear driven policies that many cities keep recycling.
1. Distance-from-school laws do not protect children.
Multiple academic studies have shown that the physical distance between a registrant’s home and a school has no measurable impact on student safety. Proximity is not a predictor of sexual reoffending. Yet many city councils, pressured by anxious residents, continue to push offenders farther and farther away from schools, parks, libraries, and any place where children might gather. These rules are not evidence-based—they are symbolic politics masquerading as safety.
2. A city cannot protect children by piling on restrictions for everyone on the registry.
Blanket restrictions treat all registrants as if they pose the same risk, even though the registry includes:
• nonviolent individuals,
• first time offenders,
• people convicted of minor or non-contact offenses (public nudity, urination, consensual teen relationships, inappropriate selfies, or non-sexual touching).
No credible research supports the idea that these individuals pose a high risk to children. Yet ordinances continue to treat them as if they are predatory threats. This is not public safety—it is political theater.
3. The registry is not a one-size-fits-all tool, and it excludes many who pose greater risks.
Depending on the jurisdiction, individuals convicted of murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, or drug trafficking are not placed on any public registry. Meanwhile, someone convicted of a low-level, non-violent offense may be listed for life. If the goal is truly to identify those most likely to commit future violence, the registry fails that test. It is both over-inclusive and under-inclusive at the same time.
4. Cities cannot “shield” children from people they will inevitably encounter in daily life.
The same individuals a city tries to banish from schools will still encounter those same children in: grocery stores, fast-food restaurants, shopping centers, private gyms, libraries, public parks, and every other ordinary place where families gather.
If a person is safe enough to stand behind a family in line at Chick-fil-A, they are safe enough to attend a school board meeting or pick up their own child from campus under normal visitor rules. Pretending otherwise is not rational governance.
Fear-based ordinances create instability, and instability is one of the few factors that does increase general recidivism risk. Evidence-based policy protects children; panic-based policy only creates homelessness, unemployment, and desperation. Public servants have a duty to lead, not to amplify public misconceptions. Leadership means explaining the data, not bending to the loudest fears. Constitutional governance requires tailoring, not blanket punishment. Restrictions must be connected to actual risk, not stereotypes.
Zandbergen, P. A., Levenson, J. S., & Hart, T. C. (2010). Residential proximity to schools and daycares: An empirical analysis of sex offense recidivism. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 37(5), 482–502.
Finding: Residence restrictions did not reduce recidivism and did not prevent sexual reoffending.
Levenson, J. S., & Hern, A. L. (2007). Sex offender residence restrictions: Unintended consequences and community safety. Justice Research and Policy, 9(1), 59–73.
Finding: No demonstrated safety benefit; significant collateral harm.
People that start these petitions are sohhhhh uninformed. Do they even realize, the huge amount of times, throughout a normal day they walk past murderers, persons forced to register, child abusers, etc.?
Do the research. Most sex offenders do not reafend. Distance is not the answer. Murders do their time and they go on with their life. Sex offender is life. Really!
The true innocence of those who have to register is sickening. Have a bad attorney and your f
I don’t care if the exclusion zone is 5 miles, their feel good laws will do nothing.