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Communities look to keep sex offenders in check

A growing number of Wisconsin communities, including East Troy, are moving ahead with ordinances that restrict where registered sex offenders can live, even as state lawmakers are considering prohibiting such ordinances.

At least 48 Wisconsin municipalities already have ordinances restricting sex offenders from living near schools, day care facilities, parks and playgrounds, according to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.

In Rock and Walworth counties, East Troy is the only community to have such an ordinance, which passed its version in 2007. There, offenders are prohibited from living within 1,500 feet from a facility for children.

Only offenders that already resided in East Troy before the offense can go back to living in the village, according to the ordinance.

But a bill heard in a public hearing Thursday before the Assembly Committee on Corrections and the Courts would prevent those municipalities from enacting or enforcing such ordinances.

One of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Fred Kessler, D-Milwaukee, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he wants to prohibit local ordinances because they will result in sex offenders being concentrated in cities such as Milwaukee, which has no residency restrictions for sex offenders, and rural areas, which don't have enough law enforcement officers to enforce such ordinances.

Instead, Kessler said, the state Department of Corrections should write residency restrictions that would be applied statewide. The department would put a priority on returning sex offenders to the communities they came from, he said.

Local officials feel that same way, and say that without a local ordinance their communities could become dumping grounds for recently released offenders.

One of the latest communities to join the list is the town of Wheatland, in Kenosha County. Officials there recently passed an ordinance prohibiting sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, day care facilities and other areas where children normally go.

"We didn't want to be the only community in our area that doesn't have an ordinance to protect us from sex offenders moving in at will," said Andrew Lois, supervisor at the Wheatland Town Board.

Dan Thompson, executive director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, said the league is normally opposed to state intervention in what Thompson said should be a local decision. That's what seems to be the consensus among most of the 602 communities that are a part of the league, he said.

"Each community ought to be allowed to make up their own minds on whether they should have such ordinances or not," Thompson said. "The city of Milwaukee at this point chose not to.

"If the council there was under the impression that it's becoming a dumping ground for sex offenders, then the city of Milwaukee would have the right to enact an ordinance."