Wednesday, September 17, 2014

California RSOL fights Proximity Restrictions… WAKE UP BREVARD COUNTY!!!


Posted by on September 11, 2014 in Articles, Featured Articles | 1 comment

Brevard County has an ordinance that not only precludes the residency of sex offenders, but where they can be physically present.

Seriously! The Brevard County Ordinance states, “No sexual offender or sexual predator shall enter into or remain within the 1,000-foot buffer zone surrounding any school, daycare center, park or playground…” The only exceptions are doctors appointments, lawyers appointments, licensed social services interviews, to comply with a court order, go to a criminal justice facility, attend a school as a registered student (like that will ever happen), to fulfill duties of employment, take your kids to and from school, go to an emergency shelter that accepts sex offenders (like that will ever happen), attend church or vote

Several practical issues come to mind…

First, are there circles on the ground that identify the “no enter” zones? Are all playgrounds clearly marked or do offenders need to do an aerial survey of their local Costco to see if there is a playground a block behind the store or behind a fence? Do offenders need to carry a 1000 foot tape measure to ensure that no part of their local Starbucks encroaches 1000 feet of a day care? Are prohibited dry cleaners marked as such or is there a publication of “sex offender accepting” retail stores so registrants will know they are clear?

Second, what’s the availability of “acceptable” establishments or services? Do registrants need to select their service providers (from accountants to barbers) based on their location rather than their professional ability? Are there an equitable amount of “separate but equal” services available to registrants? Are there ANY available golf courses for registrants?

Third, how is this ordinance being enforced? Say, for example; it’s your 50th birthday party and your brother, a registrant, is in attendance. The party is in your home, 800 feet from a school. Do the police show up at the front door checking the registration status of your guests?

Also, Should the burden fall on the family member to find an acceptable “alternative”  venue if they want to include a registrant at an event or be forced to effectively exclude the registrant? What if it’s an elderly parent? Do you need to uproot and relocate your elderly parent so you can check in on them or provide care just because you committed an offense thirty years ago? It’s one thing to punish the registrant, but this also imposes a severe burden on their family and friends.

Registrants in the State of California had the courage to stand up and say enough is enough and is in the process of initiating a lawsuit against the City of South Pasadena for their proximity ordinance. (See more here).  And their ordinance is only 300 feet!!! Brevard County’s is 1000 feet!!! WAKE UP PEOPLE OF BREVARD!!! It’s time to stand up and sue!

If you are a registrant or family member of a registrant in Brevard County, please contact legal@floridaactioncommittee.org or submit a case consideration form NOW!  We are organizing a challenge and need people willing to stand up.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

August: Links of Interest from Florida Action Committee

Recent Posts

 

California RSOL fights Proximity Restrictions… WAKE UP BREVARD COUNTY!!! 

 

September 11, 2014 

Brevard County has an ordinance that not only precludes the residency of sex offenders, but where they can be physically present. Seriously! The Brevard County Ordinance states,...


Read More »

 

Did Brevard County Schools Have Problems With Sex Offenders

September 11, 2014


Brevard County Public Schools recently issues the following statement: “Sex offender check enhances safety in Florida schools… Administrators at Brevard County Public...

Read More »

 

FDLE Acknowledges Registrants Don’t Understand Requirements, But Refuse to Clarify

September 8, 2014


The Florida Action Committee has sent two letters to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) within the past couple of months, asking them to notify us of recent changes...

Read More »

Kansas Supreme Court to Rule on Constitutionality of Registry

September 7, 2014


The  Kansas Supreme Court is set to rule on the retroactive lengthening of the time one has to register under their state’s registry. Similar to what Florida has done, the...

Read More »

 

REMINDER: Member Call Thurs. September 4th

September 2, 2014


We hope you had an enjoyable summer, but it’s back to business! There will be a Member Call this Thursday, September 4, 2014 at 8:00 PM EST. The credentials to access the...

Read More »

 

“Sex Offender” history makes you an easy target.

September 2, 2014


Source SPRING LAKE, N.C. - A registered sex offender accused of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl in Spring Lake is expected in court Tuesday afternoon. Nathan Cooley, 28,...

Read More »

 

Pierce County, WA to shift scrutiy to the limited high-risk offenders.

September 2, 2014

This article points out the financial absurdity of keeping tabs on the thousands of sex offenders registered in the county, 3/4 of which are lower risk to re-offend or are a...

Read More »

 

Federal Cybersecurity Director Found Guilty of Child Pornography

August 29, 2014

This week, Wired Magazine put out an interesting article about the former Cybersecurity Director for the US Department of Health and Human Services. As it turns out, this guy who...

Read More »

 

Miracle Village the subject of play at Indie Theater.

August 26, 2014

What’s this play about? Please give us a brief synopsis (a sentence or two) and also talk about what you believe to be the most important theme(s) in the play. MIRACLE VILLAGE...

Read More »

 

Miracle Village is the subject of a new photoshoot.

August 26, 2014

Photographer Noah Rabinowitz selected Miracle Village, of all places, as the subject for a series of photographs. The images, as well as the story behind the colony of Sex...

Read More »

 

Banished: A mini-documentary on Miracle Village

August 26, 2014

Watch the video on Miracle Village.  A small community of sex offenders living in a remote village near Pahokee, FL because there is nowhere else for them to...

Read More »

 

Air Force aiding Florida police in sex stings

August 26, 2014

Source: USA Today CLEARWATER, Fla. – Not only have Central Florida law enforcement officers violated federal rules in conducting “To Catch a Predator”-inspired...

Read More »

 

Broward Police to Ensure that Sex Offenders are Homeless

August 26, 2014

This past Sunday another Sun-Sentinel Sex Offender story came out. This time the concern is that Broward county sex offenders who are registering as homeless are not truly...

Read More »

 

There’s Literally No Evidence That Restricting Where Sex Offenders Can Live Accomplishes Anything

August 25, 2014

On Thursday, Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times reported that “Dozens of sex offenders who have satisfied their sentences in New York State are being held in prison...

Read More »

 

TX- EDITORIAL: Lonnie Green saga demonstrates need for better judgments, wiser laws

August 25, 2014

If Mart city employee Lonnie Green’s saga of triumph, despair and desperation demonstrates anything, it’s that justice is often blind in how it’s meted out. This can be...

Read More »

 

Federal Judge Questions Child Porn Sentencing

August 25, 2014

Source   Child-porn sentencing questioned   Are federal sentencing guidelines for possessing child pornography too harsh? Calling the guidelines “draconian,” U.S....

Read More »

 

FAC Responds to Ignorant Florida Atlantic University Course Description.

August 24, 2014

A member wrote: In the Lifelong Learing program of FAU, a professor, Laurence Miller, is offering a course on “Bad People: Modern Insights into the Criminal Mind”...

One to See Change Blog List

"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:
* * * *
“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:
* * * *
“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.”