City Beautification.

• Author: Garza, Mariel
• Position: Waukesha,Wisconsin bans criminals from downtown area - Brief Article

In Waukesha, Wisconsin, the city officials are dreaming of a pretty downtown, with fixed-up buildings, a rejuvenated business district, and none of those loud, alcoholic, pee-in-the-stairwell types who populate run-down city centers across the country. Rather than merely pine for such a place, police in this small city of about 62,000 just west of Milwaukee plan to ban people who have committed a crime in the downtown area from setting foot on its streets ever again.

Called "mapping out," the new law is sort of a geographic restraining order. To qualify, someone must be arrested for a crime committed within the downtown ban zone. Then police will look at the suspects' background to see if they have a history of committing crimes in downtown--or even non-criminal behavior that happens to be annoying, such as drunkenness, noisiness, or boisterousness. If they fit the profile, they won't be allowed back downtown upon conviction.

Early this year, this unique rule caught the attention of local newspapers. Milwaukee writer Joel McNally opined in the Madison Capital Times that "Waukesha law enforcement authorities have come up with a nifty plan to adapt some of the handy tools of a totalitarian government to clamp down on the wanton...