Reply #141: How do you figure it's a "do nothing" proposition?

[DoNotRefill]

And where did I say it's a "do nothing" proposition?

Please be specific.

Here's how it would work in a real sense. There are several ways that a person in violation of this ordinance would be caught:

The first would be for a person to call the police and say something like "person A is a sex offender and lives within so and so a distance of a school or whatever." The police would talk to the person that called them, run an AFIS check or whatever criminal history system they use there on the suspected offender's name, and if he is indeed a sex offender, an officer would be dispatched to issue a citation, or the Officer would go to a Judicial Officer and seek an arrest warrant based upon probable cause. The police officer would then serve the warrant. This is how most issues that don't require an immediate police response are handled. This is how issues such as zoning violations, repeated parking violations, "barking dog" violations, et cetera are handled in many places.

The second way this would come up is if the sex offender was arrested on other charges. As part of the arrest procedure, a criminal history would be obtained (this happens in all cases where an arrest is made and the person is actually taken into custody). If the person was indeed a sex offender and resided in a prohibited area, the officer would "tack" the additional charge onto the existing charges that the person was first picked up on in the first place. Since the sex offender is going to court on the other charges already, there isn't even much in the way of additional court costs associated with this.

The third way that such a situation would come to the attention of the police would be if the police designated an officer as a "sex offender" officer in addition to his or her regular duties, much as officers are designated "bad check" officers or "parking ticket" officers. That person would check the State Sex Offender registry (almost all of which are searchable by zip code) to see if anybody registered in a place that they were prohibited from residing in by the ordinance. The Officer would then go to the Judicial Officer and seek a probable cause determination based upon the police officer's research, and a warrant would or would not be issued depending on the testimony submitted in the probable cause determination.

The fourth way would be for a probation or parole officer to "violate" one of their clients for living in a prohibited area. Again, in this case, the officer in question would already be in contact with the sex offender as a part of their normal duties.

You say that "The only way this ordinance is going to be followed is if those who break it are apprehended, locked up, sent through the judicial system, etc... etc... That costs a crapload of dough to do". Well, it wouldn't cost any more to do than dealing with any other municipal ordinance would cost. Are you suggesting that ALL municipal ordinances are too expensive to be enforced?