Wisconsin lawmakers may soon make some convicted sex offenders report their places of work in addition to where they live, according to a Feb. 11 article in the Leader-Telegram.

State Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), who helped write the state’s sex offender disclosure laws, said she would like to see some sex offenders register where they work, particularly when they work for sex-trade businesses. Her comments come after Scott E. Ziegler, a 37-year-old sex offender, was charged with luring area teens in Waukesha, to his pornography and drug paraphernalia shop, where teens allegedly engaged in sex and drugs with Ziegler.

The idea of having sex offenders who work in the business of pornography is a sound one, but lawmakers need to be careful as to what levels they take this. Certainly, sex offenders working in a profession such as a pornography or perhaps a drug merchandise shop owner should be registered as they may be left unattended in the store with children.

While there are people such as Ziegler who will never truly be rehabilitated, there are also many people who aren’t a threat any more and do not work in jobs where this could be a problem. An employee at McDonald’s, for example, would not have the same opportunities for sexual assault as Ziegler did. To make public the fact that a sex offender works at a particular place could unfairly hurt the business if that person does not have the opportunity to commit any crime.

And even with a system of registration such as this, there will inevitably be people so determined to commit sexual assault that even prior knowledge of their place of work will not stop them. It is because of this that we should not overreact to heavily to this terrible but apparently solitary case.