Community asked to put pressure on lawmakers to create statewide sex offender ordinance laws

For concerned neighbor Felix Cuestel, no place is acceptable for a sex offender to live.

\"These people don't belong walking on the same earth that we do,\" Cuestel said.

But, they have to go somewhere, and that was debated at a community meeting at Allen-Field Elementary School. We've told you about this problem in the last few months, sex offenders are being released with nowhere to go and very little supervision because of strict ordinances. Representative JoCasta Zamarripa says something has to be done.

\"They're homeless and we have no way to track them. How do we do a home based visit? How do we hold them accountable and make sure they aren't doing any harm to our children,\" Zamarripa said.

Local leaders maintain that the responsibility lies with the state to place offenders. Mayor Barrett says Milwaukee has become a dumping ground for the estimated 3,000 offenders in the county. He wants laws that repeal city control, forces offenders to return to their home city, and more closely monitors high risk offenders.

\"By refusing to have a uniform standard, the state is creating more homeless sex offenders, and that's bad for every community in the state,\" Barrett said.

Representative Joel Kleefisch introduced a bill that addresses some of those issues, however Representative Zamarripa says it needs to go a step further.

\"We need to introduce a similar bill but a bit more concise, just requiring the DOC to make sure the offender is placed back to the community from which they came from.\"

Zamarippa plans on putting forth her own bill that would also put more responsibility on the state. She says community members have to put pressure on lawmakers to see changes happen.