greenbaypressgazette.com : Official: Ordinance driving sex offenders into hiding.
Green Bay's sex offender residency requirements appear to be driving sex offenders into hiding, a prison official says. Tom Smith, who works for the Department of Corrections' sex offender registration program, spoke to the city's Sex Offender Residency Board Wednesday.
Since May 2007, after the city passed its sex offender residency ordinance and established the board to hear appeals, noncompliance with the state registry has jumped, just as state officials had predicted it would, Smith said.
Green Bay's ordinance forbids convicted sex offenders from residing within 2,000 feet of a school, park or other gathering place for children. Sex offenders who established residency prior to the passage of the ordinance are exempt unless they want to re-locate within the city.
Because of the number of gathering places for children in the city, the ordinance effectively prohibits offenders from living in all but a few mostly-unpopulated parts of the city.
Smith had lobbied against passage of the ordinance in 2007 and favors elimination of the ordinance.
In addition, it's greatly complicating the process of providing ex-convicts with one of the important things they need to stay out of trouble — a place to live.
The location of a sexual predator's residence has little to do with where his offense is likely to occur, Smith said. He spoke of a case in Calumet County where the offender drove from his home in New York to assault a girl he'd met over the Internet. "That's more than 2,000 feet, isn't it?" said Arthur Taylor, the residency board chairman.
One possible change would be to reduce the 2,000-foot distance to something like 500 feet, using it to establish enforceable safety zones rather than to exclude convicted sex offenders from living in the city, he said.
