A viewer recently asked WEAU 13 News if law enforcement has to let people know when sex offenders move into their neighborhood? Here’s what we found out.

"Law enforcement will notify the public, what we call put out a special bulletin notification, when people come out of prison who are twice convicted or when someone is determined to be a sexually violent person or what's commonly referred to a sexual predator," says Jodi Voegeli, a sex offender registration specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, Division of Correctional Programs.

Voegeli works closely with law enforcement to decide when those bulletins go out.

"If it's an individual rises to the level of being declared a sexually violent person or sexual predator, law enforcement usually, 10 out of 10 times, decides to notify the public because this is an individual who's been declared to have a mental health diagnosis that predisposes them to sexual violence. In other cases, they will do level three (notifications) in cases where the victim was a stranger or involved children," Voegeli says.

Voegeli says law enforcement does a good job of selecting when to send out a level three bulletin without overdoing it to the point where people stop paying attention.

"Sex offenders have been living among us forever; the difference now is people have access to that information," says Eau Claire Deputy Police Chief Eric Larsen.

Larsen says there are three levels of notification:

Level three is the mass bulletin to the public through the media.

Level two is a more focused notification: For example, when they notify schools, daycares, libraries, or other public places when a sex offender moves nearby.

Level one means they inform officers, but not the public. Voegeli says that’s in lower risk cases or when the crime is within a family and they don’t want to identify the victim to the public.

"No matter what notification is done at the time of release, that can change. And once they're off probation, they're free to live wherever they like," Larsen says.

That’s why both Larsen and Voegeli say public bulletin or not, there is always a way to see if a sex offender moves next door. That's by checking the doc's sex offender website.

CLICK HERE TO SEARCH THE SEX OFFENDER REGISTRY.

Voegeli says the DOC's website also points out that the registry is not to be used to harass any sex offenders or their families.