With all due respect, Mr. Hodges, I see you working here. Many people across the country share your sentiments about where SOs are housed.
As somebody who has spent much of his career working with SOs, I can tell you that, for the most part, your proposals about distances from day cares and youth centers, etc. mean well, but don't do a whole lot of practical good. Most of the men who I've seen reoffend will travel to where they need to be to get what they want. Not living next to a day care or school won't make a bit of difference. Most SOs are prohibited from being in those areas anyway. The fact is, if they want to reoffend, they will. I don't like telling you that anymore than you like hearing it, but those are the facts. With all the restrictions you proposed, and drawing 1000 foot circles around every one of those places, I wonder how much square footage would be left in the city to house any of these people. Iowa recently passed an ordinance similar to what you are proposing. It effectively eliminated many small Iowa towns from housing any released SOs because the radii from all the places they were prohibited from living 2000 feet from covered the entire town and more. City folk, of course, didn't like that, because the SOs were de facto concentrated in particular areas of particular cities. It's NIMBY everywhere. I assume rents are cheap in North Minneapolis or minority neighborhoods and that's where released men with little money can get housing. I'm sincerely sorry about that, especially with all the other stuff going up there. There is talk in the legislature of funding for transitional housing for released SOs, but I can assure you that no municipality is going to volunteer to be the first test case of that sort of housing. It's an extremely complicated issue, and one that I feel for you on..... Michael Thompson Windom ----- Original Message ----- From: "Booker Hodges" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Minneapolis Issues" <mpls@mnforum.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 10:10 PM Subject: [Mpls] North Mpls Sex offender on the loose neighborhood notnoteified > In September of 2004 I wrote an article about sex offenders and today a relative of the sex offender on my block told me that James Vanwyhe is a fugitive from justice because he committed another sex offense and went on the run. I just don't understand why these people get to rome free in my neighborhood unchecked and unsupervised. I have attached a copy of the article that I wrote and a link to the wanted poster for James. I am sick of this she#to. Every crappy thing you can think of is dumped in North Minneapolis. Tomorrow I will flyer my block so my neighbors at least have some ideal of what is going on. To all my northside residents its time that we say enough is a enough. > > http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=48726&sID=16 > > > http://www.doc.state.mn.us/level3/OffenderDetail.asp?OID=200436 > REMINDERS: > 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. > > 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. > > For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html > For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract > ________________________________ > > Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy > Post messages to: mailto:mpls@mnforum.org > Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls > > REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@mnforum.org Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
