WI - 'It's not working': Debate over Green Bay sex offender ordinance intensifies

Original Article

07/02/2012

By Scott Cooper Williams

New voices are joining the debate over Green Bay’s sex offender ordinance, with the top local prosecutor and others calling for repeal of the 5-year-old law.

Brown County District Attorney David Lasee has endorsed dropping the sex offender residency law because of concerns that it doesn’t protect the public.

On behalf of Lasee, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Greene recently met with city officials to express support for taking a new direction on the sex offender ordinance.

“Those who have looked at it seem to say it doesn’t work,” Greene said in an interview.

Also speaking out on the issue is state Rep. Karl Van Roy, R-Howard, who contends that Green Bay’s restriction on where sex offenders can live is costing taxpayers money, because some offenders must remain in prison.

Van Roy called the citx’s ordinance excessive and counterproductive.

“It’s not working, and it’s over the top,” he said.

Green Bay aldermen have debated for months whether to repeal the 2007 ordinance, which prohibits convicted sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of any school, park or other place where children gather. The ordinance covers virtually the entire city and requires offenders to seek city approval before moving to a restricted area.

Police officials and others have called the ordinance flawed because it has driven many offenders to live “underground,” without reporting their whereabouts. City attorneys recommend replacing it with a 150-foot barrier around schools and parks — allowing offenders to live in the city while barring them from specific sensitive locations.

Supporters of the existing ordinance, however, have balked at such a change, saying they fear it would lead to a new influx of sex offenders living in Green Bay. A City Council committee voted recently to recommend maintaining the old residency restriction and adding the 150-barrier on top of it.

“It’s just finding a balance,” Alderman Jesse Brunette said. “I’m not saying it’s a perfect solution.”

The City Council is scheduled to debate the issue July 17.

A recent meeting of the council’s Protection & Welfare Committee brought out Greene, Van Roy and others who wanted to join the debate.

Green Bay Assistant Police Chief Lisa Sterr said she supports dropping the residency ban because it fails to recognize that Green Bay offenders are going to return to their hometown whether they can do so legally or not. Sterr said she would prefer a system that encourages offenders to report their whereabouts, allowing police to keep an eye on them.

“This really isn’t working,” she said of the current law. “Is there a perfect answer that’s going to make everybody happy? No, there isn’t.”

CA - Wilmington Residents Gather to Discuss Sex Offenders

Original Article

06/27/2012

WILMINGTON (KTLA) - Concerned residents in Wilmington held a community meeting Tuesday to discuss their options to stop sex offenders from moving to town.

The residents also wanted to find out why more sex offenders are living in Wilmington than in outlying areas.

The city's zip code is home to at least 177 registered offenders. Compared to numbers of offenders living in nearby zip codes, Wilmington's amount is remarkably high.

"Guess what? One community cannot take the burden for everybody else," said local activist Mary Gant.

When sex offenders are released from prison, most are required to return and register in the county where they were originally convicted.

Wilmington is in Los Angeles County -- where there are 18,200 sex offenders.

"They see the housing here is more affordable," said Joe Martinez, of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

"There’s not somebody who doesn’t have a job, doesn’t have a skill, that's going to find a place to live in Beverly Hills for 400 dollars a month."

Laws prohibit sex offenders from living near schools or parks, so many have chosen a Wilmington neighborhood near the Harbor Inn.

"There's a lot of them up there… and they're not being supervised well enough," one concerned resident said.

"We have to be careful that we don’t get ourselves in the position where I’m going to chase this guy out of my community and put him in your community," Joe offered.

But many residents weren't satisfied with that, and they offered the LAPD and local representatives their own solutions.

"Just put them out in the desert and put a chain link fence around it... put 'em in tents. Yes," one resident said.

Others said they believed real change will come from meetings like the one held Tuesday.

"We're going to do it with our power -- the power of our voices, the power of our vote," Gant insisted.

Residents said they considered building a Boys and Girls Club to force sex offenders to move, but they found out that's not treated the same as a school or park.

They're planning to hold another meeting in August.

FL - Palm Beach County task force hopes to ease limits on housing sex offenders

Original Article

06/26/2012

By Alexia Campbell

They live in cars or sleep on the streets. Most homeless shelters and halfway houses won't take them.

South Florida cities have pushed hundreds of sex offenders underground with strict housing laws in recent years, critics say, but a new Palm Beach County task force is taking steps to reverse that trend.

It plans to draft an ordinance this summer that would make it easier for sex offenders in the county to find a place to live. One idea: Reduce the distance the county now requires offenders to live from schools, parks, day care centers and school bus stops from 2,500 feet to 1,000 feet.
- I'm sure this will tick off Ron Book, who is head of the Homeless Trust in Miami-Dade.  He's been pushing for these laws that force people into homelessness for years.  Why?  Maybe job security?

If county commissioners choose to pass such an ordinance, it would be the boldest change to sex offender laws in South Florida since local cities began passing stricter laws around 2005.

"I feel that it's the right thing to do," said Highland Beach Mayor Bernard Featherman, a member of the Criminal Justice Commission's sex offender reentry task force. "I've learned that nothing you make a decision about is popular."

Two county commissioners, Steven Abrams and Priscilla Taylor, said they would consider easing limits.

"I'm willing to take a look at it and weigh the pros and cons," Taylor said. "We want to make sure every individual has a place to stay. We just need to be very cautious because it affects children and adults as well."

Commissioner Paulette Burdick said she would not support the change, citing "reservations" about shrinking the buffer zone to 1,000 feet.

"It's not far enough," Burdick said. "I know it's a difficult issue, but the safety and security of our children is paramount."
- Not far enough?  So what is far enough?  You could make it 50 miles and it still would not prevent crime, protect anybody and continue to force ex-offenders into homelessness and underground.

State law requires people convicted of certain sex crimes to live at least 1,000 feet from places where children congregate and prohibits them from loitering within 300 feet of those areas.

Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties and many local municipalities enacted even more stringent residency laws after Jessica Lunsford, 9, was raped and murdered in 2005 by John Couey, a repeat sex offender who lived in her Central Florida neighborhood.

Palm Beach and Broward counties require their 2,178 registered sex offenders to live at least 2,500 feet away from schools and child zones. About 200 are listed as "transient," with no address.

That transient population is growing, making them harder to track, said Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Mark Jolly, who oversees the Sexual Predator/Offender Tracking Unit. Cities have also added to the confusion by passing their own offender laws, he said.

"We need consistency," said Jolly, whose team keeps tabs on where sex offenders live. "If an offender calls me and wants to know where they can live, it's nearly impossible to tell them. [Laws] change from one street to the other."

Sex offenders in Palm Beach County have been pushed to the fringes, he said. One of the few places that accepts them is a halfway house surrounded by sugar cane fields near Pahokee. Miracle Village is home to 86 offenders who live in the duplexes and participate in faith-based programs and job training.

In Broward County, offenders clustered in Broadview Park until the county passed its current ordinance that created a 2,500-foot buffer around schools, parks and playgrounds. Residents of the unincorporated area had complained about large numbers of sex offenders moving to their neighborhood because of the residency restrictions in surrounding cities.

Palm Beach County's sex offender task force, made up of community officials and social service agencies, wants to return to a law more similar to the state's. The ordinance would only cover neighborhoods outside city limits, so the task force needs to drum up support from local municipalities to adopt a standard law.

"Obviously, the politics of this issue are serious. It's a scary population for a lot of people," said Mike Rodriguez, executive director of the Criminal Justice Commission. "I wouldn't be surprised if all of this were to go nowhere."

WI - Public safety officials come out swinging against GB sex offender residency ordinance

Original Article

06/26/2012

GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) - After further discussion and debate, a Green Bay committee remains defiant and voted to keep the city's sex offender residency ordinance in place.

The Protection and Welfare Committee heard a barrage of testimony from public safety officials in favor of repealing the current residency ordinance.

Green Bay police, the City Attorney's office, the Department of Corrections, the Sex Offender Registration Program, and the District Attorney's office want the city council to scrap the ordinance in favor of establishing child safety zones that prohibit where sex offenders can go.

Public safety officials argue the highly restrictive residency ordinance is increasing the number of child sex offenders from registering with the state and not applying to live in the city.

Public safety officials say study after study shows residency ordinances don't work and have the opposite effect of sex offenders registering where they live.

Jed Neuman is with the Department of Corrections and says residency restrictions compromise their ability to keep the community safe, labeling it such as the perception of safety versus the reality of safety.

"I have yet to find a study that shows they are effective in providing community safety, I've yet to find anything anywhere that lessens recidivism, that they prevent assaults," Neumann said.

Alderman Jerry Wiezbiskie is in a unique position because he served on the city council that passed the residency ordinance.

He voted against five years ago.

Wiezbiskie was frustrated with the committee's vote, "Again here is the common sense factor, I predicted five years ago the ordinance would not work, and here we are today, almost five years later and it's not working."

Alderman Joe Moore is in favor of keeping the current ordinance and says he acting in the heart of what he believes his constituents want.
- Yeah, you don't want to go against what the sheeple want and not look "tough" on crime, which could possibly ruin your career, which the sheeple are paying for.  Also, since the majority of the people do not like or want taxes, are you also going to pass a law to eliminate taxes?  I doubt it.

Moore wants to see the child safety zones be added to the 2,000 foot residency restriction that also requires child sex offenders to apply to live in the city with the Sex Offender Residency Board.

Moore is calling for some changes to the residency ordinance that would favor a grace period for sex offenders to come forward with where they live and would not incur penalties.

"Until I get a majority of my constituents that come to me with a different feeling that that… I can't use my own emotion to do what I feel I have to do," Moore said.

Alderman Jesse Burnette, who serves on the committee, is in favor of the scrapping the residency ordinance, but doesn't think the public would be ready for it.

He would like to see new child safety zone proposal in place and some sort of grace period before throwing out the ordinance.

Green Bay resident Mary Barlament spoke in favor of scrapping the current residency ordinance in favor of child safety zones.

"This does not work, and I would hope that you would listen to that and the professionals who I think are doing a great job," Barlament said.
- You folks don't care about the facts or what professionals say, only what saves your jobs and makes you look good.

Brown County Assistant District Attorney Kevin Green says he has been dealing with 200% more failure to register and non compliant cases than before the residency ordinance went into effect.

The DA's office is recommending repealing the current ordinance and putting it up for a vote at the full city council.

Green said, "The simple fact is, what objective research they have simply says they are not effective, there is one study that says it is counterproductive, that is because it forces some people underground you lose the benefit of the registry."

Outgoing Green Bay Police Chief Jim Arts wrote the committee a letter asking for a repeal of the residency ordinance in favor of the child safety zones.

Arts recommended a three year trial period.

The committee voted 3-1 to recommend adding a proximity proposal to the current residency ordinance.

The child safety zones would prohibit child sex offenders from going within 150 feet of daycares, schools, and parks.

Aldermen Jesse Brunette, Tim De Wane and David Boyce voted in favor of the recommendation.

Chairman Mark Steuer voted against the recommendation.

"I suppose there is some frustration on my part, because talking to our police department, the state and other agencies, they all say it doesn't work," Steuer said.

WI - Green Bay's sex offender rules will stay the same, for now

CA - Santa Ana considers tougher sex-offender law

Original Article

05/21/2012

By RON GONZALES

SANTA ANA - The City Council will consider amending its 2006 registered sex offender ordinance to align with Orange County’s 2011 law.

The county ordinance makes it a misdemeanor for registered sex offenders to enter county recreational areas where children regularly gather.

The city’s ordinance prohibits registered child sex offenders from being on or within 300 feet of designated children’s facilities and parks to loiter or observe children.
- Here they say it's about those who've harmed children, but below they say it's for ALL ex-sex offenders, which clearly would make it unconstitutional.

The city’s new law, if approved Monday, would also take aim at registered sex offenders, banning their presence inside parks and specified facilities, and would make the offense a misdemeanor.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and Chief of Staff Susan Kang Schroeder plan to attend the council's meeting, their office said.

The county ordinance, proposed by Rackauckas and Supervisor Shawn Nelson, was approved by county supervisors April 5, 2011. Between May 2011 and April 2012, the cities of Westminster, Irvine, La Habra, Los Alamitos, Huntington Beach, Yorba Linda, Laguna Hills, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Costa Mesa, and Seal Beach passed similar ordinances, the district attorney’s office said, and other cities are currently in the process of developing a similar ordinance.

The council meets at 6 p.m. Monday at the Police Community Room, 60 Civic Center Plaza. Call 714-647-6520.
- And everyone who this will affect should attend this meeting.