UPDATED: With more details from ordinance.
The Silver Lake Village Board on Wednesday passed an ordinance restricting where sex offenders can live within the village.
During citizens comments, two representatives of the state Department of Corrections criticized such ordinances, saying they make it difficult to place registered sex offenders in appropriate housing, which can work against public safety. Such laws can drive offenders “underground” and have them not report to the registry. It also can create public safety problems by creating additional homelessness, the representatives said.
The ordinance seeks to prohIbit sex crime offenders “from establishing temporary or permanent residency in close proximity to known locations within the Village where children regularly congregate.”
Locations where sex offenders are prohibited from living are: “any school, licensed day care center, unlicensed care facility where three or more children that may be related by heredity, park, trail, playground, place of worship, or any other place designated by the Village as a place where children are known to congregate.”
Undr the ordinance offenders not placed by the Departmetn of Corrections cannot establish a residence within 2,500 feet of a prohibited location. If placed by DOC the distance is 500 feet from a prohibited location. Also, sex offenders are not allowed to live within 2,500’of each other.
A copy of the whole ordiance is available here.
