After two convicted sex offenders moved next door to 11-year-old twins this past June, several Republican legislators support a bill hoping to prevent further potential incidents.
Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, introduced the bill which would prohibit Chapter 980 sexual offenders, or people convicted of sexually violating children, from living within 1,500 feet of spaces that children frequent, such as schools and places of worship.
“We felt that the policies that the department had to gather information and make decisions was inadequate, so we drafted a bill to put standards in place,” Born said.
With only 84 child sex offenders released, Born said that the distance limit was not implausible to resettle violent sex offenders in society.
He also pointed out the recidivism rate among sexual offenders.
“As far as the specifics of this program, we’ve had 84 people placed in the supervised release program, and maybe 40 percent of those have returned to custody for a variety of reasons,” Born said. “So obviously, there’s people that don’t operate successfully in supervised release.”
But support for the bill is not universal. Nick Yackovich, University of Wisconsin assistant social work professor, does not support the legislation, calling it reactionary, which he claimed is common with incidents such as this.
Yackovich agreed with Born that the legislation is targeted specifically to the most violent offenders, but still did not consider the bill necessary. He said instead of crafting new legislation, Wisconsin lawmakers could aim to correct specific mistakes instead of overriding the law in full.
“The overall negative is just that this kind of legislation, and housing restrictions in general, is just not effective for what it’s intended to do,” Yackovich said.
Yackovich pointed to a study conducted by Jill Levenson, Lynn University professor of human services, which argues against laws like the one Born is proposing. According to the study, housing restrictions prevent offenders from re-integrating into society by keeping them away from public transportation, job opportunities and potentially pushing them into homelessness.
The study pushes for different community protection strategies, but the bill currently holds many Republican supporters.
