Vote on sex offender residency delayed

Proposal would loosen city’s rules about housing restrictions

A measure to dramatically loosen the city’s residency restrictions for sex offenders was delayed Monday by the Milwaukee Common Council.

Council members voted unanimously to hold the proposal after several aldermen warned it would disproportionately affect some districts.

The city’s current ordinance bans many sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of places like schools, parks and day care centers. The proposal would reduce that “buffer” to 500 feet.

Ald. Terry Witkowski warned that, under the plan, nearly 50% of the city’s sex offenders would be limited to living in two south side districts.

“We’re looking for more time to find a more equitable solution,” he said.

The measure comes after six registered sex offenders filed a lawsuit in May challenging Milwaukee’s existing ordinance, which was adopted in 2014. In it, they argued that the current policy virtually bans them from living in the city, and violates their constitutional rights.

Witkowski also questioned whether the city should fight the issue in court.

But Ald. Bob Donovan said waiting too long to act could put the city at risk of losing lawsuits.

“Then we make ourselves a no ordinance place,” Donovan said. “And talk about being a dumping ground then.”

The current 2,000-foot radius limits Milwaukee’s registered sex offenders to living in about 115 designated residences, with a few exceptions. Reducing the buffer to 500 feet would expand that number to 15,049 residential buildings and 22,105 housing units, according to a recent memo from the city’s Legislative Reference Bureau.

The proposal would also ease requirements for family members who have sex offenders living with them, and exempt those offenders whose most recent crime and incarceration was more than 10 years ago. And it would limit the city’s residency restrictions to apply only to sex offenders required to register under state law for offenses against children.

Several council members slammed the state Legislature for failing to address the issue on a statewide level. And Ald. Mark Borkowski urged the state to create housing for some offenders instead.

“If you want to talk about an issue that could be catastrophic amongst us in our districts, this is that issue,” Borkowski said. “This is huge. This is serious.”

Ald. Chantia Lewis called the measure “troubling,” adding that the northwest side would also be disproportionately affected.

Local and state lawmakers around the country have mostly embraced sex offender residency restrictions, saying they protect children from dangerous convicts. But some researchers have found no evidence linking such ordinances to lower rates of recidivism, arguing instead that such ordinances make communities less safe by destabilizing the lives of sex offenders.

Milwaukee aldermen enacted the city’s ordinance three years ago after most neighboring municipalities passed their own rules. City leaders argued Milwaukee had become a dumping ground for sex offenders.

However, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation last year found the ordinance hasn’t worked as planned. Rather than pushing offenders into the suburbs, more than 200 offenders became homeless and offenders recently released from prison continued to move into the city.

When the lawsuit was filed, one of the lawyers representing the offenders said people’s lives are being destroyed by the residency limits.

Earlier this year, U.S. District Court Judge J.P. Stadtmueller ruled unconstitutional a 3,000-foot ordinance in the Village of Pleasant Prairie, just south of Kenosha. Stadtmueller found the ordinance effectively banished sex offenders and harmed a “politically unpopular group” without legitimate reason.