Saturday, July 5, 2014

Palm Beach County may change sex offender residency restrictions

Posted on July 3, 2014 in Articles


http://floridaactioncommittee.org/palm-beach-county-may-change-sex-offender-residency-restrictions/


For a long time FAC has been reporting of the unintended consequences residency restrictions have created.


Little to no housing options for registered sex offenders has led to homelessness. It has separated families; husbands not being able to live with their wives, fathers not being able to parent their children. Housing instability is a trigger for recidivism. It has caused registrants to go undeground rather than live homeless or separated from their loved ones. Transient sex offenders are more difficult to track… all this without any evidence that registration requirements make our communities safer.


One South Florida County is finally paying attention to all the evidence, studies and testimony from experts, including law enforcement and prosecutors and doing something that will actually make our communities SAFER. Palm Beach County is considering rolling back it’s sex offender residency restrictions to what the state mandates; from 2500 feet to 1000 feet.
 
An ADD ON to the July 1st  Board of County Commissioners agenda read as follows:

ADD-ON: Staff recommends motion to approve on preliminary reading and advertise for public hearing on July 22, 2014, at 9:30 a.m.: an Ordinance of the Board of County Commissioners of Palm Beach County, Florida, amending Chapter 18, Article II of the Palm Beach County Code (Ordinance No. 2006-012, amended by Ordinance No. 2011-033); relating to Sexual Offender and Sexual Predator Residence Prohibition, to be known as “the Sexual Offender and Sexual Predator Residence Prohibition Ordinance of Palm Beach County, Florida”; amending Section 18-34 (Sexual Offender and Sexual Predator Residence Prohibition; Exceptions); providing for repeal of laws in conflict; providing for a savings clause; providing for severability; providing for inclusion in the Code of Laws and Ordinances; providing for captions; and providing for an effective date.

SUMMARY: The State of Florida sexual offender and sexual predator residence prohibition laws preclude sexual offenders and sexual predators from establishing a permanent or temporary residence within one thousand (1000) feet from specified locations where children regularly congregate. The current County Ordinance provides for a more restrictive distance, prohibiting sexual offenders and sexual predators from establishing a permanent or temporary residence within twenty-five hundred (2500) feet from certain defined areas where children regularly congregate. The proposed amendment reduces the number of feet to 1000 and eliminates a designated public school bus stop from the list of specified locations, making the Ordinance consistent with Florida law. Additionally, the proposed amendment is responsive to current federal and state law evolving in other jurisdictions that suggests a County’s imposition of residency prohibitions on sexual offenders and sexual predators may not be more restrictive than the residency prohibitions mandated by the State. It is anticipated that the League of Cities will have no opposition to the proposed Ordinance amendment, as this Ordinance is applicable only in the unincorporated areas of the County. Unincorporated (PGE)
We ask residents of Palm Beach County and all those impacted by these laws to write their legislators and encourage them to repeal the 2500 foot restriction.
 
The local CBS affiliate reported on the change, which can be seen here: http://www.cbs12.com/news/top-stories/stories/vid_17322.shtml

Florida Action Committee (FAC), founded in 2006, is a state-wide consortium of concerned citizens and professionals whose purpose is to promote the prevention of sexual abuse while preserving the safety and dignity of all citizens through carefully structured laws targeting the truly violent, forced, and/or dangerous predatory acts of sex. FAC believes that many aspects of the current approach to sex offenders seriously undermine justice and actually increase the threat of sexual assault against others, particularly children. FAC opposes a publicized registry of sex offenders and seeks to bring an end to the humiliation of people who have already paid for their crimes. FAC asserts that only by supporting justice for all people—offenders and victims alike can a truly safe society be built and secured for all Americans. 

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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
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“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.

But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?

All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
* * * *
What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
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“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
* * * *
I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”