Batavia Aldermen Won't Change Sex Offender Restriction

Members of a Batavia city committee agreed on Tuesday that the city should not impose extra residency restrictions on registered sex offenders beyond those required by Illinois law.

The committee agreed not to forward the issue to the full Batavia City Council. This was the committee's second formal discussion on this issue. The first .

“I don’t think this is something we need to do anything about,” said James Volk, Ward 4 alderman and City Services Committee chair. “I don’t think (the current rule) is causing any problems.”

State law bans registered sex offenders from living, or even visiting overnight, any home within 500 feet of a school, day care center or public park, and 100 feet away from a marked school bus stop.

The Space Between

Resident Rodney Shiver asked the City Council in June to expand the restricted area to 1,000 feet after he serving students at Alice Gustafson Elementary School.

Police contacted Batavia School District 101 officials, who moved the bus stop to comply with the law. Bus stops are not marked, partly to avoid attracting sex offenders, said Batavia Police Chief Gary Schira.

Shiver said that moving unmarked bus stops every time a sex offender unwittingly moves into a home near a stop is too unreliable a solution.

“Who’s going to monitor that? The schools? The police?” he asked committee members Tuesday.

Shiver also argued that many students live more than 500 feet from their schools and could be forced to walk past sex offenders’ homes on their way to and from school.

“There is little or no adult supervision when children are let out of school," Shiver said. "Many of them walk several blocks by themselves. Making sex offenders move farther away from schools would make these kids safer.”

Unintended Consequences

Expanding the restricted areas in which sex offenders cannot live would hurt police efforts to monitor them, Schira said.

“If you make it more difficult for sex offenders to find residences, they become transients or don’t report their addresses, which makes it harder for us to track them,” Schira said. “Currently all 10 of the sex offenders living in Batavia are in compliance with the law. If we moved to a 1,000-foot minimum, nine of the 10 would not be in compliance anymore and would have to find new residency. If we moved to a 2,000-foot minimum, all 10 would be in violation. Five hundred feet has worked very well for us.”

City Administrator Bill McGrath cited studies that show 95 percent of sex crimes against children are committed by perpetrators who are not registered sex offenders, and added that police keep close tabs on local registered sex offenders.

“We don’t feel anybody’s children are in harm’s way through proximity to registered sex offenders,” he said.

Increasing residency restrictions can hurt innocent relatives of sex offenders, said Carolyn Gage, a spokeswoman for Illinois Voices for Reform. The group advocates for change in sex offender laws. 

“When family members live in restricted areas, that bars the sex offender from staying with them at holidays, when they’re ill or just to visit," Gage said. "Increasing the restricted areas could suddenly make family members’ homes off limits.”