The state’s plan to locate a sex offender to a Dane County neighborhood has residents up in arms. Charles Patterson will be living near a church and a day care in the Town of Madison. It was standing room only at the town hall Tuesday night for a community notification meeting. Kim Knapp is with the State Department of Health and Human Services, charged with monitoring Patterson. “I will have more information about that. What I can say is that those areas (church and day care) will be restricted via GPS,” Knapp told the skeptical crowd.
Melissa Lori, with the state Department of Corrections, says knowing where an offender is living is vital. “Brown County, for example. Green Bay specifically is my favorite city to pick on. They’ve passed a city ordinance that prohibits registrants from living within certain square feet of schools, parks, day cares. Sounds like a great idea, but guess who all still lives there? All those registered sex offenders. But guess what? You don’t know it now, because now they’re not reporting their address.”
“It’s very difficult in the state of Wisconsin, especially in counties such as Dane County . . . finding an area that is not close to a school, a park, a day care,” said Knapp with Health and Human Services. The 28 year-old Patterson was convicted of assaulting children in the mid 1990s. In 1998, when he was 17, he was deemed a sexually violent person and sent to a secure treatment center.
AUDIO: Knapp, Lori at Middleton hearing (:60)
Robin Colbert, WIBA