Green Bay, Wisconsin creates board to rule on residency restriction exemptions

An ordinance designed to reduce the influx of sex offenders into the city has been letting them in at a rate of about 48 per year, according to data obtained by USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin.

Nevertheless, complaints have been few, and most city officials judge the ordinance a success.

The city’s sex offender residency ordinance is 10 years old this spring. Passed in 2007, it forbids convicted sex offenders from moving to within 1,500 feet of any place where children are likely to gather. The restriction essentially closes off most affordable residential areas of the city to convicted sex offenders who didn’t already live there before the ordinance was passed.

But Green Bay’s ordinance, unlike most of the other 175 ordinances placing housing restrictions on sex offenders in communities throughout the state, provides one major exception: Any sex offender may seek an exemption by taking his or her case to a five-person board, whose citizen members are appointed by the mayor.

The board listens to the sex offender’s story, asks questions about his or her offense, what counseling the offender had in prison and afterward, what the offender’s job prospects are like, and what his or her family support mechanism looks like.

If the board feels the risk for re-offense is low, it’ll grant the exemption. It does so in roughly 70 percent of the cases, according to the data the city has kept for 10 years. In that time, the board has received 772 applications for exemptions to the ordinance. Dozens were withdrawn or postponed, several are pending, but the board approved 484 applications and denied 199, according to the data.

While that approval rate may seem high, city officials expressed confidence that the board is considering each case individually and judging each on the basis of its estimation of the offender’s risk to the community.

“The overall premise of the board is, we want never to make a mistake,” said Dean Gerondale, who has chaired the board for about four years. “As far as we know, nobody we’ve allowed in the city has ever re-offended. I mean, we’ve had people arrested for other, non-sexual crimes, but nobody that we let in re-offended as a sexual criminal. That’s the most important thing for us.”

Every case is different, and even when the crimes look pretty much the same, the risk as perceived by the board could differ widely from case to case, Gerondale said.

Consider the case of three different offenders. Randy J. Graham, Cary R. Johnson and Jason M. Ludke. Each was convicted of similar offenses involving girls. Graham received exemptions from the board every time he asked, and Ludke has never received an exemption. Johnson received a few exemptions and several denials but is now living in defiance of the ordinance without the board’s permission.

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Most offenders apply more than once and most are eventually approved, if not right away.

Sometimes it’s the nature of their offenses. An 18-year-old convicted of having sex with a 15-year-old will receive different consideration than a 47-year-old with a 15-year-old, for example.

But more than anything, it’s whether the board can be persuaded the community is not at risk.

“Every case is really different,” Gerondale said. “You get someone who did something 25 years ago, and now, his wife shows up at the hearing with him, and he has three young kids and no brushes with the law in 25 years. You really think this guy is a risk to the community? Probably not, versus someone who just got out of prison, had no sex offender counseling, lives alone, has no job. To me, that’s a higher risk.”

Somebody convicted of more than one offense committed over time has little chance before the board, Gerondale said. If the person has undergone a lot of counseling, that could play favorably in the board’s mind, but not if the offense involved a child under, say, 10, he said.

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