Tuesday, December 15, 2015

FAC Weekly Update for 2015-12-09

For more Weekly updates go to http:Floridaactioncommittee.org and become a member... you'll be glad you did!

Let’s call this week’s update “musical sex offenders”. Like the children’s game where you circle chairs, removing one each time and when the music stops, one child is left without a chair to sit in and eliminated. In musical sex offenders, the chairs are opportunities, the music is the legislature and registered citizens are the ones walking in circles waiting for the music to stop and one more opportunity to be taken away.

That has been the case with sex offender legislation since inception. Residency restrictions remain in effect as the number of available places to live, like the chairs, are eliminated one-by-one. The music starts again and when it stops, restriction on internet use comes up and job opportunities disappear. In “musical sex offenders” registered citizens are circling a consistently dwindling pool of opportunities, in constant fear that when the music stops an axe is going to fall and the only question is what will be taken away next.

Recently, the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld a ban on social media. To anyone who’s had a job since 1997, they are not exactly mailing letters or sending faxes anymore… Also, in a Texas city, they passed a law laws week requiring registrants post a sign in their yard that says, “Sex Offender Lives Here”. Regardless of the facts that none of these measures have any effectiveness and only serve to further punish the registrant (and whoever lives with him), but these are just more chairs that get pulled away when the music stops and for those of us who don’t live in North Carolina or Gonzalez, Texas, we’re walking in circles waiting for the music to stop. Only, in Florida, where registration is lifetime, the game is never over.

For those reading this, we’re preaching to the choir. By virtue of you receiving this email, you’re fully aware of what’s going on, you are aware that these measures do nothing to enhance public safety and only serve to further punish registered citizens irrespective of the severity of their offense. If you are getting this email, you are already aware of FAC, who we are and what we are doing to fight for reform.

What we ask of you today is to send this email to 10 friends or family members. People who know you, care about you, know you are not a monster and would be willing to help you. Invite them to join FAC, because by becoming a member, not only will the $5 a month go a long way in helping to fund our litigation, legislative and outreach efforts, but they will be educated on the facts surrounding our cause and kept informed of the latest developments and new laws that effect the rights of all citizens. They, in turn, will educate others and it’s only by getting our message out there that we will help influence public perception of registered citizens and end the game.

Sincerely,

Florida Action Committee
To Join FAC, please visit: http://floridaactioncommittee.org/become-a-member/
To Donate to FAC, please visit: https://floridaactioncommittee.org/donations/


SOME HEADLINES FROM THIS WEEK

Interesting Statistic – Most Florida Sex Offenders are NOT in the Community
The stated purpose of a public registry is SUPPOSED to make the public aware of who to "watch out for" in the community, right? Well in doing some research, I came across a...

The Palm Beach re entry task force has asked FAC to circulate the following notifications of opening at a new hotel. Five hiring events will be held in the next two weeks to...

The Gonzales City Council approved an ordinance at Tuesday night’s regular monthly meeting requiring registered sex offenders within the city limits to post signs in their yard...

Here's the law in Osceola County that is causing this: ARTICLE IV. - SEXUAL OFFENDER RESIDENCY   Sec. 14-73 (a) It is prohibited and unlawful for any person who is required...

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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:
* * * *
“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.”