Batavia leaves sex offender distance law as-is

Batavia’s sex offenders won’t have to move farther away from schools, day-care centers and school bus stops.

A city council committee, acting on the recommendation of the police chief, decided to keep the current distance mandated by state law, of 500 feet, rather than using the city’s home-rule power to raise it to 1,000 or 2,000 feet.

A resident had asked the committee for the increase.

“I think we are trying to solve a problem that frankly doesn’t exist,” Police Chief Gary Schira said.

The city has also posted a map in the hallway outside the city council chamber, showing what areas would be affected at each distance. For example, at 500 feet, 30 percent of the residential space is excluded; at 1,000, 59 percent; and at 2,000, 82 percent.

Schira said the town cannot legally prevent registered sex offenders from living in town entirely.

“The 500 feet has worked very, very well for the 10 registered sex offenders we have,” said Schira, who submitted a report on the subject to the city services committee this week.

“If you peruse the research (on sex offender registration), the requisite buffers are somewhat of a false sense of security. That’s not the best way to ensure there wouldn’t be repeat offenders,” Schira said. That research, he said, shows offenders end up becoming transients or stop reporting their addresses. He considers those scenarios to be worse because then police don’t know where they are.

The request for added distance was made by resident Rodney Shiver who, in early July, brought to the city’s attention there was a school bus stop in front of an offender’s house on Carlisle Road. State law prohibits offenders from living near a marked bus stop. Since Batavia School District 101 does not mark its bus stops to avoid advertising them to child sex criminals, it moved the bus stop.

Tuesday, Shiver said he still worries about predators in the neighborhood of Alice Gustafson Elementary School, which is also on Carlisle Road. “There is little to no adult supervision where children are let out at Alice Gustafson,” and many of the children walk to school, he said.

And Shiver was astounded to learn Batavia police didn’t know the location of bus stops. “There is an inherent flaw of not communicating (with the school district), he said.

Schira said the district is notified of sex offenders’ addresses.

He also noted that, according to a 2000 report by the Justice Department, 34 percent of victims were assaulted by relatives, and 59 percent were assaulted by acquaintances.

“I commend you for considering the research and not just blindly passing more restrictions.” said Caroline Gage of Gurnee, representing Illinois Voices. The organization believes current state law is inadequate, unjust and does not provide safety because it treats all manner of sexual offenses nearly the same. It advocates against including crimes that may not be sexually oriented — for example, unlawful restraint — on the list requiring sex offender registration.