Florida Ramping up the Insanity

Florida: Does the State Care about Protecting Your Children, or Is It All about the Squeakiest Wheel getting the Grease? 

From http://www.uncomfortabletruth.org    Written by Cheryl

Our State is a jangled mess of city, county, and state ordinances telling sex offenders, no matter what their crime, where they can live, work, walk, in some instances drive, who they can associate with, if they can be on the Internet, go to a library or even McDonalds to grab a sandwich. 

The States sex offender homeless, transient, and absconded population has increased greatly since these laws have been put into place.  We know there is a huge problem, as we have seen by the international media coverage of the colony of registered sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Bridge.  Even our Attorney General, Bill McCollum has agreed we may well be creating a more dangerous situation.  While some few areas of this state have declined to place extended residency restrictions on the residence of these offenders, many areas are still either introducing greater restrictions or bypassing law by putting in school bus stops or parks where they see an offender or offenders they want to get rid of.

Broward County on the East Coast of Florida had an intelligent idea.  They decided to form a task force to study the impact and effectiveness of residency restrictions.  They did a good job and had 11 recommendations for the County and State.  As far as they went, these were excellent recommendations.

Broward Sex Offender Task Force Report  

RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on our review of the available evidence, we respectfully submit the following
recommendations for policy which reflects criminal justice research and "best practices."
While some of our recommendations were unanimously agreed upon, others were not.
Our recommendations reflect the consensus of the task force based on majority vote.

1. It is clear that bus stops diminish housing availability within buffer zones to a literal point of non-existence. We recommend that if a residential exclusion zone is passed, it should not include school bus stops as a prohibited venue.

2. Based on data provided by the county's Planning and Redevelopment Division (p.22), it is also exceedingly clear that a 2,500 foot zone as described in the existing ordinance will exclude sex offenders from residing in the unincorporated areas of the county. Because 24 municipalities have also passed 2,500 foot exclusion zones, few options exist for sex offender housing throughout the county. This raises concerns, not due to sympathy for sex offenders, but because research indicates that housing instability is a consistent and robust predictor of absconding, probation violation, and recidivism for criminal offenders in general and sex offenders specifically. Reports from FDLE indicate a growing number of "sex offender transients" in Broward, and many more in Miami-Dade County where homelessness resulting from residential restrictions has caught national attention.

3. Residence restrictions regulate only where sex offenders sleep at night and do nothing to prevent pedophilic or predatory offenders from frequenting places during the day where they can cultivate relationships with children and access opportunities for sexual abuse. Therefore, we recommend that the commissioners consider enacting a child safety zone preventing sex offenders from loitering without a legitimate reason in areas where children are present.

4. We recommend that in any ordinance that is passed, an exception be made for offenders who established their residence prior to the passage of the ordinance (a "grandfather" clause). Such clauses are commonly found in other municipal ordinances. Because housing throughout the county is so limited, such a clause will reduce the probability of homelessness and transience for RSOs who are already living in unincorporated areas. The proposed end-of-lease grandfather clause simply delays housing instability rather than prevents it. Grandfathering homeowners but not lease holders represents differential treatment based on financial resources.
Since there is no reason to believe that current lease holders present a greater  threat to the safety of children than homeowners, this differential treatment seems not only unfair, but illogical.

5. We recommend that an exception be made (referred to as a Romeo & Juliet clause in Florida statutes) for young adults with a single victim and who, at the time of the offense, were under the age of 22 and committed a "statutory" offense with a teenage victim no more than 4 years younger than the offender. While we recognize that such behavior is unlawful, and that minors cannot legally consent to sexual activity with an adult, we also recognize that such offenders are not typically diagnosed as pedophiles and probably do not pose a significant danger to commit
future sexually violent crimes.

6. We recommend that commissioners strongly urge our elected state senators and representatives to enact a statewide solution to sex offender management. The problem of clustering is a direct result of the multiplicity of ordinances throughout the state (at least156) which push offenders into areas with less restrictive buffer zones.
The best solution is for the Florida legislature to enact a uniform statewide
residential policy for sex offenders. We recommend that the county commissioners adopt a resolution asking the legislature to create a statewide residence solution, which should include a Romeo & Juliet clause as well as a grandfather clause. The recommendation to the legislature should also urge the adoption of a uniform statewide child safety zone provision preventing RSOs from loitering within 300-500 feet of a school, park, daycare, designated school bus stop, or other place where
children regularly congregate. We also recommend that the legislature review the crimes that require registration and that Florida create a more refined, risk-based classification and tier system of offenders that might, in some circumstances, lead to individuals eventually being deleted from the registry but only upon meeting criteria established by statute and requiring judicial review.

7. We recommend that commissioners strongly urge leaders from the League of Cities to endorse a uniform county-wide ordinance. The problem of clustering is a direct result of the multiplicity of differing ordinances throughout the county (24) which push offenders into areas with less restrictive buffer zones. In the absence of legislative reform, the best immediate solution is for city councils to agree to enforce
uniform residential policies for sex offenders throughout this county.

8. We urge leaders from the League of Cities to undertake an analysis of potentially compliant housing in each municipality and amend ordinances to allow for reasonable housing availability to alleviate clustering. Information designating compliant residential locations should be provided to DOC probation, law  enforcement agencies, and other case managers to assist RSOs in securing housing.

9. We recommend that commissioners consider text amendments to land use plans to allow residential units in industrial areas as a permitted use. The feasibility of alternative housing options for sex offenders needs to be more fully investigated, as any alternative housing would be subject to zoning variances and practical considerations such as affordability and access to residential infrastructure (public transportation, shopping, services, etc.). Innovative housing options are recognized as a possible long-term solution requiring complex planning and development, and therefore should not be considered as a singular alternative to our other
recommendations.

10. We support Mayor Ritter's letter to Governor Crist asking for leadership and assistance in addressing the matter and suggesting a statewide or regional taskforce to allow for uniformity of residence requirements.

11. Based upon concerns raised by the Broward Sheriff's Office and the State Attorney's Office, we recommend that commissioners and the county attorney review the language defining "temporary" and "permanent" residence in Ordinance 2009-22 as "a place where a person abides, lodges, or resides for fourteen or more consecutive days.  

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Then we read a story by Fred Grimm(http://tinyurl.com/nj5zz4) that tells us of a small Mission called St. Francis that is being forced to remove all the sex offenders that the DOC ASKED them to house and provide a program for, because the City placed a Park within the restricted area of the Mission.

First, it should have been the Cities responsibility NOT to place a park within that distance of this Mission. 

Second, the Mission should have been given a variance or exemption because it was there first. Many areas have used placing school bus stops and parks in areas where registered sex offenders live as a means to force those offenders to move.  In an area where there is such minimal housing opportunities for Registered Offenders, that type of game playing should be criminal in itself.

And thirdly, and most importantly, when is  this cycle of placing our most vulnerable citizens at risk due to the public being given false or incomplete information regarding registered sex offenders and of our politicians playing politics with our children’s safety going to end?

I would have to say that due to the placing of this park and the removal of registered sex offenders from a Christian Transitional Facility, where, to quote Fred Grimm’s article “You'd think that the supervision and discipline and therapy and strict curfews and drug testing and spiritual guidance and actual beds offered by the St. Francis Mission might be preferable to having jobless, homeless sex offenders prowl the streets and sleep under bridges.” Our Politicians are afraid of making the necessary changes to the ordinances and laws to rid of the ineffective ones that cause more harm than good.    They are afraid of the public outcry of those in support of these laws.  If they would educate the public and explain the reasoning for changing these laws, they would get much more support.  Senator Aronberg, who understands the “more harm than good” concept is running to State Attorney so he is not about to rock his boat.  State Attorney McCollum is running for Governor, so he must be very careful.  Governor Crist, who could have done and could be doing much to help in this time of crisis, is doing nothing at all, unless passing the buck can be counted as action.   

This State needs FULL TIME LEADERSHIP, not leadership when they are not running for an office. 

We need LEADERSHIP, not Legislators who follow the whim of those most squeaky wheels in order to avoid controversy.  If our leadership cannot LEAD then they need to get out of the way!  Vote them out of office!   How much experience do we need, how many studies do we need to tell us that residency restrictions do not  affect re offense and that they do more harm than good before we begin to act on those facts? How can we get people to stop their magical thinking of getting “rid” of these people and realize that former offenders who are in a transitional facility with support, therapy, and restrictions are 1000 times more safe for our communities than ones who are homeless, jobless, hopeless, without support, angry, and with nothing to lose? Some say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  The State, counties, and cities of Florida are engaged in insane behavior and our children are the ones suffering for it.