{image1} Let's do the political math:

Gov. Jim Doyle (a Democrat) names Milwaukee professor Stan Stojkovic to a committee charged with trying to find a site to house so-called sexual predators in Milwaukee County.

Mayor Tom Barrett (a Democrat) says, without receiving criticism, that he'd object to any site in the city of Milwaukee. The committee, with Stojkovic as chairman, then rules out all sites in the city of Milwaukee. Some private property owners withdraw their sites from consideration, also without condemnation. The committee ends up with only two properties left on the list.

Milwaukee County owns both. With public anger increasing, Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker (a Republican opposing Doyle for governor) says they aren't for sale, either.

Walker's merely joining a loud chorus of other officials, who also stridently objected to having the predator house in their communities, from Barrett to the mayors of Glendale and Mequon and pretty much every leading politician whose jurisdiction was ever considered.

But it's Walker and only Walker (reminder: the Republican candidate opposing Doyle in 2006 for governor), who becomes the lightning rod for criticism from Stojkovic and other members on the state committee.

In the newspaper, Stojkovic accuses Walker of running away from the problem, saying the county-owned properties could be used even if Walker objected to their sale, and even scolds, "Shame on you, Milwaukee County."

No one presses Doyle on why the state hasn't come up with any state-owned properties for consideration, except for a Milwaukee television reporter, who corners the governor, only to have the governor duck his questions -- without condemnation.

Playing politics with predators?

If so, it's a political miscalculation. Walker hardly suffers from being criticized publicly for standing against allowing a home for sexual predators on county land. If anything, Walker's helped by this political calculus. Doyle's lack of comment on the issue hardly helps him.

In fairness, Stojkovic -- who I used to quote often as a reporter and always felt was an intelligent person -- has the most unenviable job in the county right now. The predators need to go somewhere because courts have ordered their release. Keeping them confined risks the entire law being found unconstitutional because they have already served their sentences. Courts have said the law is only constitutional because it's designed for treatment and not continued incarceration. It would be far worse for the law to be nullified and predators to end up released with no supervision at all.

But the hyper-focus on Walker seems unfair -- and opens the door to questions about politics -- in light of how many other officials have taken the same position without criticism.

It's also unfair to just blithely dismiss Walker's concerns that the county-owned sites are too close to children. A top state administrator recently estimated that keeping offenders committed through the sexual predator law has prevented 115 new sex crimes and 425 new victims. In addition, almost half of all released Chapter 980 sexually violent persons (the term preferred by treatment professionals) have been returned to secure facilities because of rule violations, some sexual in nature.

Walker, like the other officials, has a mandate to consider his constituents' safety.

And making Walker the lightning rod is convenient because it gives the state cover. The subtext many are missing in the sexual predator debate is why the predator pipeline is so clogged with offenders needing placement in the first place. And that's something that belongs firmly back at the feet of the state.

In 2000 (when a Republican, Tommy Thompson, was governor, -ed.), the state Department of Health and Human Services quietly changed its rules. Its doctors were told to start recommending that predators be released even when they had refused or not undergone treatment. This practice continued unabated through 2003, when I reported the change for a newspaper. In addition, Wisconsin's standard for release was lower than other states.

The change doubled the number of releases (making Wisconsin highest in the nation in releases) and led to the flurry of contentious Milwaukee County cases. Judges started ordering the release into Milwaukee County of predators such as Robert Carney, who had allegedly never undergone treatment and still believed his juvenile victims wanted it. Not surprisingly, local politicians and the public didn't exactly react positively.

Republican legislators last year subsequently pushed through changes in the state's sexual predator law that required that treatment be considered and raised the release standard. But the damage was already done as various sexual predators remained in a holding pattern looking for a place to land in densely populated Milwaukee County.

But wait -- it's all Scott Walker's fault!

McBride, a former Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter, teaches journalism at UW-Milwaukee. She's married to Waukesha County DA Paul Bucher (a Republican, who has announced that he will seek his party's nomination to run for state Attorney General in 2006).

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of OnMilwaukee.com, its advertisers or editorial staff.

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