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7/20/2016 Minnesota cities rush to restrict where sex offenders live - StarTribune.com <br />LOCAL <br />Cities are rushing to restrict sex <br />offenders <br />Efforts to limit housing spill over to State Capitol. <br />By Maya Rao (http://www.startribune.com/maya-rao/137958973/) Star Tribune <br />APRIL 4, 2016 — 10:49PM <br />After a convicted child molester moved to town, Minnesota Lake passed a law <br />effectively banning sex offenders from most of the small community. <br />Mahtomedi approved restrictions on where convicted rapists could live after hundreds <br />of residents signed a petition demanding action. <br />And in Birchwood, the City Council held an emergency meeting in order to place stricter <br />limits on sex offenders after learning that a pedophile was moving there. <br />Minnesota has seen a dramatic rise in municipal laws restricting where sex offenders can <br />live after they have served their terms, setting up a fight at the State Capitol. Some <br />legislators want to give local communities more control to enact new restrictions, but <br />state corrections officials say that such ordinances can be ineffective and that they invite <br />legal challenges. <br />A group of legislators has proposed a measure allowing cities and counties to enact <br />tougher laws to keep Level 3 sex offenders — considered the most likely to reoffend — <br />away from schools, parks and other places frequented by children. <br />The chief sponsor, Rep. Jim Newberger, R -Becker, says he hopes the bill will give the <br />towns stronger legal standing to defend their sex -offender ordinances in court. <br />Communities are bracing for the release of more sex offenders from forced civil <br />commitment in response to a federal ruling that declared the state's program <br />unconstitutional. <br />U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank has ruled that the program is essentially permanent <br />confinement with no clear path to release. <br />The issue is politically perilous for leaders of both parties, who must weigh the <br />constitutional questions vs. the political blowback from releasing potentially dangerous <br />offenders into the community. <br />Gov. Mark Dayton has ordered the state to fight Frank's ruling, saying it posed a risk to <br />public safety. <br />The growing concerns have prompted more cities to adopt ordinances spelling out <br />where convicted offenders are restricted from living. <br />'"What they're worried about is that eventually someone will challenge it," said <br />Newberger. "There's no statute to back it up right now." <br />'A testy situation' <br />Corrections Commissioner Tom Roy told legislators his agency is "very concerned" that <br />the number of laws restricting sex offenders has doubled to 39 over the last year. He said <br />studies showed that bans on where sex offenders live do not reduce the likelihood of <br />them committing more crimes. They only create barriers to officers supervising them, he <br />said, noting that Minnesota has seen the number of homeless offenders rise dramatically <br />in the last decade. <br />"It is really a testy situation that we all face, and, intuitively, we would like to believe <br />that drawing circles around cities will decrease recidivism ... but in actuality, it does <br />not," Roy said. <br />http://www.startribune.com/where-do-offenders-live-cities-scramble/374566221/ 1/2 <br />