Opinion ID: 1253046
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: History, Object, and Context

Text: ¶ 50. Wisconsin Stat. § 175.45 (1993-94) was the first Wisconsin statute to require persons convicted of certain sex crimes to register with the State. Bollig, 232 Wis. 2d 561, ¶ 21. Section 175.45 required a convicted sex offender to provide information about his or her home address, place of school enrollment, place of employment and employment duties to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Wis. Stat. § 175.45(2) (1993-94). The DOJ was required to maintain the information. Wis. Stat. § 175.45(7)(a) (1993-94). ¶ 51. At that time, neither Wis. Stat. § 175.45 (1993-94) nor any other statute provided for any access to a sex offender's information, or any notification of that information. Instead, § 175.45 required the DOJ to keep the information confidential except as needed for law enforcement purposes. Wis. Stat. § 175.45(7)(a) (1993-94). Section 175.45(6)(b) stated that: [w]hoever knowingly fails to keep information confidential as required under sub. (7) may be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned for not more than 30 days or both. Wis. Stat. § 175.45(6)(b) (1993-94). ¶ 52. In 1996, the legislature revised and renumbered the sex offender registration system by enacting 1995 Wis. Act 440, creating Wis. Stat. §§ 301.45 and 301.46. Bollig, 232 Wis. 2d 561, ¶ 21. The new sex offender registration law transferred the sex offender registry to the DOC, required the DOC to maintain the sex offender registry information, and provided for extensive access to that information. ¶ 53. As we noted in Bollig, the legislative intent behind the creation of Wis. Stat. §§ 301.45 and 301.46 can be gleaned from a proposal found in the Legislative Reference Bureau's drafting file for 1995 Wis. Act 440. 232 Wis. 2d 561, ¶ 22. The proposal, prepared by the Wisconsin Department Of Corrections Sex Offender Community Notification workgroup (DOC workgroup), is entitled Sex Offender Community Notification Proposed Program Components, Executive Summary and Final Report (1994) [hereinafter Final Report]. [14] The DOC workgroup was formed in response to efforts by legislators to introduce community notification legislation based on a revision and expansion of the then existing registration statute. Bollig, 232 Wis. 2d 561, § 22. [15] The DOC workgroup's Final Report made recommendations and laid out a framework for the new sex offender registration and notification law. Final Report, supra. It recommended expanding the then current sex offender registration law to comply with Title XVII of the 1994 Federal Crime Bill. [16] Id. at ii. ¶ 54. The DOC workgroup's goals were to: [A]nalyze current DOC, local law enforcement, and other state laws/practices related to community notification of sex offenders, and; [F]ormulate recommendations and/or options to be communicated to the Legislature related to the most effective model for community notification. This model will need to balance community protection with the offender's community re-integration needs. Id. at 1. ¶ 55. A section of the DOC workgroup's Final Report summarized the then current notification practices under Wis. Stat. § 175.45 (1993-94). It stated in part that for cases supervised under a high risk caseload, probation and parole may provide extended notification within the neighborhood, schools, employers, etc. . . .as deemed appropriate and necessary. Id. at 3 (emphasis added). ¶ 56. Kaminski contends that the legislature intended to discontinue this practice, as evidenced by language in Wis. Stat. § 301.45(7) stating that: The department shall keep the information confidential except as provided in. . .[§ ] 301.46, [and] except as needed for law enforcement purposes, found in Wis. Stat. § 301.45(7)(a). ¶ 57. We disagree. The 1996 legislation lifted many provisions from the 1993 law. Wisconsin Stat. § 175.45(7)(a) (1993-94) read: The department of justice shall maintain information provided under sub. (2). The department shall keep the information confidential except as needed for law enforcement purposes. ¶ 58. Most of this language was carried over to Wis. Stat. § 301.45(7)(a) where it is applied in a different context to a different department. The department [of corrections] shall maintain information provided under sub. (2). The department shall keep the information confidential except as provided. . . . The subsection then uses the word except three times, listing numerous statutes. The subsection includes the phrase except as needed for law enforcement purposes. ¶ 59. In the 1993 law, the DOC and the Department of Health and Social Services were required to share information with the DOJ. [17] Wis. Stat. § 175.45(9) (1993-94). Nothing in the 1993 law prevented the two departments from using their own information in the normal course of business under other statutes. ¶ 60. When the law transferred the sex offender registry to the DOC, it did not prevent the DOC from using its own information to carry out its mission in probation and parole. ¶ 61. The most significant change in the 1996 legislation was that a sex offender registration law became a modified sex offender notification law, expanding access to information. There is no evidence to suggest that the legislature intended to curtail the DOC's ordinary operating procedures. ¶ 62. During 1993 and 1994, probation and parole officers could notify certain people in a high risk sex offender's neighborhood, as well as schools and employers, about the sex offender. Final Report, supra, at 3. In this work, the agents were utilizing their own information. ¶ 63. One precept of the DOC workgroup was to build upon these current systems or practices. Id. The DOC workgroup's recommended model was to improve or expand on current practices, and to provide flexibility to the agency of jurisdiction and law enforcement in order to expand or reduce community notification based on case-by-case factorsleaving discretion to individualize notification strategies. Id. at 2. ¶ 64. Nothing in the Final Report or elsewhere in the legislative history of 1995 Wis. Act 440 indicates that by enacting the 1996 revision, the legislature intended to limit the ability of probation agents to disclose sex offender information if necessary to supervise clients who were sex offenders. Instead, the legislature pointedly gave the DOC authority to maintain the sex offender information, broad discretion to disclose the information, and broad discretion to write its own rules. ¶ 65. We cannot conclude that in granting the DOC broad authority to notify the general public under certain circumstances, and in expanding notification procedures generally, the legislature intended to usurp probation agents' authority to impose probation rules requiring notification of people in close proximity to a specific sex offender. Such action would run contrary to the goal of protection of the public from sex offenders, which the DOC workgroup deemed a paramount governmental interest. Id. at i. ¶ 66. Kaminski also points out that Wis. Stat. § 301.46 originally did not specifically provide for any notification of the general public absent a request for information. He notes that the legislature amended § 301.46 in 1997 to authorize the police and sheriff to provide information to the general public even without a request for the information. 1997 Wis. Act 6. Kaminski asserts that when the legislature did not extend this authority to the DOC, the legislature expressed an intention that the DOC not have authority to notify the general public of a registered person's status as a sex offender. ¶ 67. We agree that Wis. Stat. § 301.46 did not originally authorize the DOC to notify the public at large. It does not follow, however, that the legislature intended in enacting 1995 Wis. Act 440 to prohibit a particular probation agent from imposing rules of probation requiring a probationer to inform specified persons of the probationer's status as a sex offender. ¶ 68. It is clear that prior to the enactment of Wis. Stat. §§ 301.45 and 301.46, neither law enforcement nor the Departments of Corrections or Justice was authorized under Wis. Stat. § 175.45 to notify any member of the general public of a registered sex offender's personal information. Yet, prior to 1996 probation agents could notify certain persons of a client's sex offender status. Final Report, supra, at 3. In enacting Wis. Stat. §§ 301.45 and 301.46, the legislature intended to build upon current systems or practices, id. at 3, and to improve or expand on current practices. Id. at 2. The DOC workgroup recommended that relevant offender information should be made available for the purpose of. . .screening of current or prospective employees or volunteers. . .and to offer the general public greater access to this information for their protection. Id. at i. ¶ 69. We find it unlikely that in enacting 1995 Wis. Act 440, the legislature intended to prohibit the only method the DOC or law enforcement had of notifying anyoneincluding the convicted sex offender's employer, landlord, immediate neighbors, or a person with whom the sex offender might begin an intimate relationshipof the convicted sex offender's status, if these persons did not request the information. [18] ¶ 70. We cannot agree that the legislature intended to prohibit notification of potentially vulnerable persons; nothing in the language of the statutes or in the legislative history supports such a conclusion. Such a conclusion would invalidate the notice in rule 16-3 for persons with whom the offender may become intimate, and would make it difficult for agents to work with potential employers, landlords, social service agencies, and professionals not specifically listed in Wis. Stat. § 301.46, without going through separate law enforcement agencies to convey information about offenders. ¶ 71. We conclude instead that when the legislature enacted 1997 Wis. Act 6 it acted on an intent to expand notification and protect the public. It augmented the then current practice of probation agent notification by allowing law enforcement to inform anyone in the general public of information regarding the sex offenders in a community, even without a request. This amendment has resulted in wide-scale notification, such as on publicly accessible Internet sites. ¶ 72. We conclude that the legislature did not intend that Wis. Stat. §§ 301.45 and 301.46 occupy the field of sex offender registry notification and access, and did not intend to prohibit the DOC and probation agents from imposing rules of probation. ¶ 73. Our conclusion is supported not only by the object, legislative history, and context of the statutes, but also by current practice. On its sex offender registration Internet site, the DOC states that: Public Safety is the primary objective of sex offender supervision and the [o]ffender is not allowed to remain anonymous. Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Sex Offender Registry Program, Sex Offender Supervision and Rules (2001), at http://publicsor.doc.state.wi.us/static/rules.html (last visited July 3, 2001). ¶ 74. The DOC declares on its Internet site that [s]upervising sex offenders is a multifaceted activity, requiring agents to adopt various roles and to work closely with a variety of other professionals as well as family members, employers and others who routinely interact with the offender. Id. It further stresses the need for the [u]se of personal/community and professional supervision networks to help monitor, modify, and control offender's behavior. Id. ¶ 75. Probation/parole field units bear the onus of locating housing in the community for sex offenders, a time-consuming and frequently frustrating task. Supervision; home visits; collateral contacts with landlords, employers, and so forth. . . . Richard G. Zevitz & Mary Ann Farkas, Sex Offender Community Notification: Assessing the Impact in Wisconsin 10 (2000) (study conducted by the National Institute of Justice) (on file at the Wisconsin State Law Library) (emphasis added). ¶ 76. To ensure that a registered sex offender obtains employment and housing, a probation agent might need to interact with the sex offender's prospective employer or landlord and advise that person of the sex offender's status. It is difficult to imagine that a probation/parole officer, required by the dictates of supervising a registered sex offender to make contact with the person's landlord and employer, would be prohibited by the legislature from divulging that the person is a sex offender or requiring the offender to inform his or her landlord or employer of his or her status. ¶ 77. The same reasoning holds true for the person's neighbors or for a person with whom the registered person might become intimate. We do not read Wis. Stat. §§ 301.45 and 301.46 as reducing a probation agent's supervisory role for convicted sex offenders. ¶ 78. Clearly a circuit court, the DOC, or a probation agent could impose conditions or rules of probation requiring a probationer who is not a registered sex offender to inform his or her employer, landlord, neighbors, or a person with whom the probationer might become intimate, of his or her status. See Wis. Stat. §§ 973.09 and 973.10; Wis. Admin. Code § DOC 328.04(3). We do not discern a legislative intent to grant registered sex offenders more privacy and greater rights than other probationers. As the DOC workgroup stated: Persons found to have committed a sexual offense have a reduced expectation of privacy because of the public's interest in public safety. Final Report, supra, at i (emphasis added). [10] ¶ 79. In summary, we find nothing in the language, the legislative history, the object, or the context of Wis. Stat. §§ 301.45 and 301.46 to indicate that the legislature intended in enacting 1995 Wis. Act 440 to prohibit probation agents from imposing rules requiring registered sex offenders to inform specified persons of their status. We conclude that Wis. Stat. §§ 301.45 and 301.46 were not intended to occupy the field of sex offender registration information notification, and do not preclude a probation agent from imposing a rule requiring a probationer to inform others of the probationer's status as a sex offender.