WI: Winnebago County approves $1 million housing project for released violent sex offenders
The Winnebago County Board passed a resolution Tuesday night to spend just over $1 million to build a housing facility for certain violent sex offenders that state law requires the county to house.
Multiple single-resident housing units would be built on county property near County Y to house recently released offenders.
In 2018, then-Gov. Scott Walker signed a law shifting the responsibility to counties to provide housing or suitable housing to purchase for certain sex offenders who committed a sexually violent offense. Previously, it was the state’s responsibility.
The locations where released offenders can be placed face strict parameters. For example, they must be at least 1,500 feet from a school, child care facility, public park, house of worship or youth center.
Winnebago County has had trouble finding them housing in the limited time the law allows. If a suitable place for housing can’t be found within 120 days, the county can be fined up to $1,100 per day.
SOURCE
Mequon and Thiensville, WI banish all RSO from moving to their communities unless their offense was committed their. Then about 2% of the community is open to live in. It is clear to see that the map of Mequon was created by finding an excuse to build a restrictive zone anywhere a RSO could live. RSOs are not allowed to live within 2000 feet of protected zones such as police departments and movie theaters or schools. By the way they define a school as anywhere a parent home schools their kids! Here is a map: https://www.ci.mequon.wi.us/sites/default/files/fileattachments/police/page/2581/official_sex_offender_restrictions_map_-june_2021-_website.pdf
Pleasant Prairie, WI lost a lawsuit for much less blatant restrictions but lawyers so far have not gathered the low hanging fruit in Mequon and Thiensville. https://www.fox6now.com/news/sex-offenders-win-federal-lawsuit-against-village-of-pleasant-prairie-its-going-to-open-a-lot-of-doors
Roger
I had to laugh out loud when you stated they cannot live near a police department. If I was the chief, I would want them to live close by, that way the officers do not have to travel all across town tracking them down.
Having said that, and having been a law enforcement officer, if I was the chief, I would tell the DOJ we have “Real” police work to do and do not have staff to check on people who have done their time.
Yes, that was the strangest thing I read. One would think the community and law enforcement would believe the closer to where more law enforcement presence is the better. The community would “feel good” that cops could keep “the others” under their thumb. I don’t understand what logic they could claim for this residency restriction. I’m very confused.
Including the police station as a residency restriction is all about banishment. After looking at the map I included, you will see that almost any place that would otherwise be livable is restricted. In addition, if you did not commit your sex offence within the city limits you are banished, therefore entitling you to damages if you lived in Pleasant Prairie, WI
It is a start but, what kind of security will they have? I can see this as a target for trouble if there is not some form of security. And we all know there will be protestors before, during and after it is built.
“Oh don’t build it”, “Oh don’t allow them to move in”. “Kick them out, burn them out”. It is the classic “Good news, bad news” for registered citizens.
Simple solution ,remove the housing restrictions, that do nothing anyway. Dumb Dumbs. Stop wasting money.
On another subject. Here locally when ever the sex offender registry is mentioned on tv or radio, along with it comes the lie about how these have such a high recidivism rate and how they can’t be rehabilitated. Could anyone produce a simplified list that contains nothing but the many studies made, by whom, date, and determined recidivism rates that could be printed out and provided to such sources when ever they make such statements.
Meanwhile in Gotham
What about drug dealers who have been arrested so many times, the police know them by name. Now that is a recidivism rate that can actually be tracked. On the other hand, we barely register on the scale of recidivism statistics.
SEXUAL RECIDIVISM RATES FOR PEOPLE WITH A PAST SEX OFFENSE
NARSOL’s compilation of state-by-state recidivism studies (https://floridaactioncommittee.org/narsol-state-by-state-recidivism-studies/)
American Law Institute: This past June of 2021 the American Law Institute (ALI), probably the most honored non-governmental law reform organization in the country, which includes top federal appeals judges, along with law professors and other legal experts, proposed major changes to the state sex offense registries. One reason cited was that research shows a relatively low sexual recidivism rate after being caught and serving time in prison. (See page 484 of the report.)
Also on page 484, footnote 23 of the ALI report is found: “as few as 5.3% [of sex offenders] re-offend within three years, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, as opposed to rates in the 65% to 80% range for drug offenders and thieves.” (Stuart A. Scheingold et al., Sexual Violence, Victim Advocacy, and Republican Criminology: Washington State’s Community Protection Act (1994), 28 LAW & SOC’Y REV. 729, 743)
Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from State Prison: 9-Year Follow-Up (2005-14): The U. S. Department of Justice May of 2019 Recidivism Report found that released inmates in 30 states, whose most serious offense was rape or sexual assault, had a re-offense rate (committing another sex crime) of 7.7% over the 9-year period from 2005 to 2014. That means that 92.3% did NOT re-offend. This study only considered the most violent of sex crimes. When all sexual offenses are included, the rate is lower.
Karl Hanson, Connecticut’s One Standard of Justice January 2021 Webinar: “Sex Offender Recidivism Risk Not What You Think”, https://youtu.be/Hnf3bmoPLx4 – start at 19 minutes: Karl Hanson, one of the leading researchers in the field of risk assessment and treatment for people who have committed a sex offense, compiled data from many different research studies on re-offense rates for people on the sex offense registry and found the following to be true: The lifetime sexual re-offense rate is anywhere from 10% to 30%, depending on which study you use, with the larger studies having the lower rates.
Karl Hanson, Andrew Harris, Leslie Helmus, David Thornton, “High-Risk sex offenders may not be high risk forever”: “This study examined the extent to which sexual offenders present an enduring risk for sexual recidivism over a 20-year follow-up period. Using an aggregated sample of 7,740 sexual offenders from 21 samples, the yearly recidivism rates were calculated using survival analysis. Overall, the risk of sexual recidivism was highest during the first few years after release, and decreased substantially the longer individuals remained sex-offense-free in the community. This pattern was particularly strong for the high-risk sexual offenders. Whereas the 5-year sexual recidivism rate for high-risk sex offenders was 22% from the time of release, this rate decreased to 4.2% for the offenders in the same static risk category who remained offense-free in the community for 10 years. The recidivism rates of the low-risk offenders were consistently low (1%-5%) for all time periods. The results suggest that offense history is a valid, but time-dependent, indicator of the propensity to sexually re-offend.”
Kelly Bonnar-Kidd, “Sexual Offender Laws and Prevention of Sexual Violence or Recidivism”: “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ‘sexual violence perpetrators are … at increased risk of perpetrating again.’ Not mentioned by the CDC, however, is that the risk is still quite low, with most criminal justice and community-based studies showing that people on the registry are rarely returned to prison for another sexual crime.
Also cited in the above study: “Furthermore, in New York, of the 11,898 registered sex offenders released from prison between 1985 and 2001, 251 (2.1%) were returned to prison for another sex crime. The Arizona Department of Corrections reported that between 1984 and 1998, the recidivism rate for sex offenders was 5.5%, and Ohio reported that sex offenders released from prison in 1989 had a 10-year recidivism rate of 8%. According to the US Department of Justice, registered sex offenders are the least likely class of criminals to re-offend, with 3.5% of registered sex offenders released from prison in 1994 being reconvicted for another sexual offense within 3 years of their release. Finally, Harris and Hanson found that the risk for recidivating decreases significantly over time, with most re-offenses occurring within 5 years of the original conviction.”
This is good that they are putting money toward a solution that keeps the public off our backs while we are transitioning. You wouldn’t believe how low people will stoop to stopping PFR’s from succeeding. The ministry I have been involved with, JumpStart Ministries, just had a brand new manufactured house burn down. I don’t think utilities were even hooked up, so very suspicious to me. Likely someone was incensed upon learning of the grand opening of their new community and torched the building.
https://www.facebook.com/JumpStartMinistry/