CINCINNATI (WKRC): Some Southwest Ohio cities more aggressively keep sex offenders away from schools

Local 12 reported Thursday (2/8/24) that hundreds of people on Hamilton County's sex offender registry are living within 1,000 feet of a school or a daycare, but there is little law enforcement can do about it unless a city attorney sues the offender in civil court.As a follow-up to that investigation, Local 12 found that some city attorneys appear to be more aggressive than others. Word seems to be getting around about cities, and their attorneys, that are tougher on people listed on the sex offender registry. Of the 1,150 registered sex offenders living in Hamilton County, 800 live in the City of Cincinnati. That means approximately one in 400 people in the city is on the registry.

The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office says about 28% of registered sex offenders in the county are violating the law by living within 1,000 feet of a school or daycare facility. The sheriff sends a list of the 60-to-70 new people added to the registry every week to each city in the county. While the remedy is for cities to file civil suits against violators and get judgements for them to move, Cincinnati has only filed suit twice in the past six years. The City Manager's Office told Local 12, "After the City investigates and verifies the sheriff’s office information, the City reaches out to those identified individuals, notifying them of a deadline to move and that failure to do so will result in litigation to compel compliance. This outreach largely results in compliance and, therefore, litigation is not often an outcome.

"The sheriff's office says cities can be as aggressive as they want regarding enforcement of the 1,000-foot rule.“ They can put additional restrictions on offenders in their own communities,” said Hamilton County Sheriff’s Capt. John Loewenstine. For example, Norwood passed an ordinance about 20 years ago that not only says registered sex offenders can't live near schools and daycare facilities, but they also can't live near parks, libraries, pools, or community and recreation centers. In addition, they are banned from participating in Norwood rec center programming.“ That actually keeps those people out of the buildings, not just living 1,000 feet away,” said Tim Garry, Norwood’s Assistant Law Director. Plus, the city takes the list the sheriff sends out every week and gives the names of those living in Norwood to its police department.

“CAGIS [Cincinnati Area Geographic Information System] allows us to figure out where the jurisdictional lines are,” said Norwood Police Lt. Carl Fair. “So, if you look here, there’s an outline of the City of Norwood.” The police department plots the addresses on a map and makes sure the offenders are complying with the 1,000-foot law and ordinance.“ Go from that address to the nearby school property line, double-click that, and [the sex offender’s residence is] also within 1,000 feet of that one," Lt. Fair said, demonstrating the system.