The preamble to the city ordinance that restricts where sex offenders can live calls them “an extreme threat to the public safety” who are “extremely likely to use physical violence and to repeat their offenses.” It says the cost to society is, “while incalculable, clearly exorbitant” and claims the intent of the ordinance is “not to impose a criminal penalty” but to improve the health, safety and welfare of citizens.
“That’s an awfully broad brush to be painting all sex offenders [with],” said Larry Dupuis, legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin. “People who have been convicted of sex offenses are quite variable. Unfortunately, most of these laws treat them all as identical.”
In fact, nationwide, only 5.3 percent of sex offenders re-offend within three years of their release. More than nine out of 10 had not previously been convicted of a sex crime; most victims are known to the perpetrator; and treatment can have a significant effect on whether or not a sex offender will reoffend. In Wisconsin, sex offenders deemed to be at high risk of reoffending are confined to sex offender treatment facilities under a 1994 law.
Dupuis, who was involved in an unsuccessful challenge to a similar South Milwaukee ordinance, said residency restrictions on sex offenders “are largely driven by misconceptions.” Among them is the idea of the “lurking sex offender,” which Dupuis called “fiction,” and the assumption that sex offenders are more likely to commit an offense closer to their homes.
All 19 municipalities in Milwaukee County have some type of residency ordinance that restricts where sex offenders can live. “The biggest problem with many of them is that they’re actually counterproductive. They make people’s lives less stable,” said Dupuis.
Dupuis added, “They have to live somewhere.”
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